Neuro-Reality

Before Bob appeared from nowhere as I walked out of the Riding's centre I was doing just fine, I was doing alright. 

 

It was 2003 and in the background there was Just Books on Wood Street, a store that had emerged from out of a dream I had told, there were several rows of classical literature lined up before me, it was a little heaven. Similarly, there was the cyber-cafe at the adjacent side of the road and presumably my mother had hired the most beautiful girl to work behind the cash register, she was blonde and blue and wore incredible artistic clothing that was rich with vibrant and bright colours. I'd previously said, "Wakefield lacks a cyber-cafe," and I'd also said, "Genetic selective breeding seems incredibly intelligent behaviour to me". I would sit behind the computer screen at a large round table with a jumbo goldfish in a glass bowl in the centre. The girl would stand behind the till talking to me with her eyes, the boy who worked alongside her, good, smart, wholesome, and clean. 

 

I had recently influenced songs in David Bowie's Heathen album, there were a few scattered lyrics, but I hadn't understood what David Bowie was about at that time. 

 

I hadn't been friends with Bob since 1998, but it isn't true that I hadn't seen him in the interim. 

 

I had been in the Works scanning the shelves for cheap books when I looked over and saw him, I weaved in between tables and across space and stood by his side, "Hi," I said. He didn't seem at all pleased to see me, he seemed somewhat rude and inconvenienced. "This is a great book," I said, then added, ". . . it would be great to read whilst tripping." I was pointing to a copy of the Ten Dimensional Maze, "What is it about?" Bob said picking the book from off the shelf and flicking through. He corrected his form to stand tall and upright and I with slumped shoulders immediately emulated his behaviour. I said, "I haven't worked it all out yet, but I will do". He seemed to gasp, "Uh!" and he pointed to a book called THINK TANK, "That's a great title," he said and made as though to leave. "Can I show you something?" I asked, "What?" and I took him across the room, into the far left hand corner and passed him a box-set of some audio-cassette tapes that were called, THE BIG BANG! He pulled a face of discontent as I spoke the words and I corrected him, "It's African hand-drumming". He took the box-set from my hands and mulled over the written descriptions on the packaging and then went to the counter to pay for the Ten Dimensional Maze and the hand-drumming. He left the store very quickly without saying goodbye and I felt deflated. 

 

Ten minutes had past when I saw him on the precinct with a young man and even though he had seen me, he totally blanked me and as I walked away I turned over my shoulder and squinted with my eyes and pursed my lips in hostility and derision. He responded by opening his eyes as wide as he could and when I got back to the flat I placed a printed image of one of his masks into a cigarette tin and set it alight. 

 

On New Year’s Eve, 1999 I was sitting by myself in Players when my ex-girlfriend and her new Pakistani boyfriend and her friend Anna walked into the darkened underground pub through the door before the stairwell. There was also Russ and Bob who trailed behind. 

 

Bob sat on a small round stool to my left hand side, he was dressed entirely in white clothing, he had white shoes on and socks too. Inexplicably it seemed to me, he turned his back on me and I felt embarrassed and humiliated in front of the others, the elders behind the bar saw this and were looking over at me. The ex and her boyfriend were to my right hand side and she said, "I was going to come around and see you," and I said, "I really don't think that's such a great idea," and she snapped, "Fine then! Fine then!" I rolled my eyes, shaking my head from side-to-side. I caught Anna staring at me, I wasn't certain why, she looked away and then looked back again. 

 

Bob swivelled around on his stool to face me before they were about to leave and I was wearing a shirt over a long sleeved T-shirt that the ex had selected for me to purchase and I put the sleeves together between us so that he could see two thick dark navy blue line bands running upward along the length of the arms, they were edged with a thin red line on either side of the blue. Bob shook my hand, left. 

 

The ex's new boyfriend lingered behind after the others had left the room and he said, "She really wanted to be your friend," and I brushed him away with a flick of my right wrist, told him to "go away", she'd told an old Pakistani adversary from high school I'd  punched for raping a girl where I'd lived, I wasn't happy about that, and he became very angry and I think there were some threats and "f**k yous" and he was remonstrating before me and I stood up and looked to the heavens - the ceiling of Players - with my hands held in prayer, this he shook off with contempt, he wasn't having that at all, there were more threats and then he too left. Lauren was looking at me like, you've got yourself into trouble again and we looked deep into one another's eyes. I didn't really have to try very hard to find trouble it seemed.  

 

I left within a minute after him, I didn't care so much and I sat on a bench outside of the Post Office on Northgate only to discover to my surprise that the group were in a bar I hadn't noticed before that was on the other side of the road. It was called Monkey. First I saw Bob's Pakistani friend on his mobile phone, he had previously kicked in the front panel on my flat's door which was church property and then he had pushed me around. He was much stronger than me, more athletic. Bob dressed in white walked out of the bar, down the road, back up the road, back down the road, and back up and into the bar, he was wanting me to imitate him. I sat alone with my hands held to my head. 

 

The Cathedral clock struck midnight and several young people ran down the road without clothing on, one naked man stopped before me and shouted, "Happy New Year!" There were fireworks bursting high in the skies with flares of colour and loud bangs that echoed miles around. 

 

The following day I saw Bob's collage-painting on the wall of the bar and I knew before examining further that it would be about me, only the detail was missing. 

 

The house number I lived at was in the body of the figure that represented myself, 4. The figure was smiling in emulation of a figure I had once painted, they would often greet me with empty eyed smiles, this had comedy value for themselves and was irritating for myself. The figure was separated from the pack, above the pack were the words, "The Guardian", this I knew to be David Bowie and next to the figure of me were the words, "Don't Die Just Yet". There were images of corpses in coffins with crosses penned in felt tip or paint. I noticed the word "Patrol" and wondered what this may mean. The artwork for the most part was painted white. 

 

The painting caused me considerable stress. It was simultaneously a death threat and from my reading of comparative religions, a completion of an archaic initiation for the office of Shaman. I had spoken to Russ over a latte in a local cafe and he insisted death meant death and not a symbolical or spiritual death either, as I had hoped.

 

A year and a half later, on the night they took the painting down I strode past Russ and Bob who were loading the art into the back of a van, they wouldn't meet my gaze, but  they knew that I was there. 

 

In the first month of 2003, Bob moved from over 8 miles away onto the next street to me and we past on College Grove Road and I kept my head down, didn't look at all at him. Once I peered through my living room curtain and saw him walk up the road and another time as I was about to cross into the yard of the flat I rented he stood for a long moment in front of the building looking at his wristwatch. Whatever game you're playing, I'm not interested, I thought. 

 

I'd spent the last four years without these people from my past; I had outgrown them, moved on. It had been splendid isolation during this time, studying, reading, writing, drawing, and painting. I hadn't been "falling to pieces" as Bowie had sung on a B-side to a single from Hours. I had enjoyed the happiest years of my life even though there were times of poverty and hunger. 

 

"I don't want to talk to you," I said to Bob outside of the Ridings, "Just leave me alone," he stood as though hit by a sucker punch to the mid-riff, stunned, surprised, and disappointed. I conceded in my getaway stride and stopped. He asked what I'd been doing? I said, I'd been "browsing books in Ottakers", he recommended I read a book called Perfume, "It's about a murderer", he said. I found his language unnerving, I had read Freud. He told me the ex had a baby, "That was ages ago," he said, "You're not still hung up on her are you," I said, "No!" he seemed disappointed. 

 

I was pretty mean and rude to Bob during this transaction, I had once looked up to him, he had been my inspiration and a model of aspiration, I had been subservient to him wanting only his approbation the years I had formally known him, he had never experienced nastiness or anger from me before, I had never been intentionally rude before. I had often been quiet and nervous and timid, with a shaky hand. He had once said, "The reason that people take advantage of you is because you are under-confident". 

 

"I don't have a single pleasant memory of you!"

 

"Your room always smells illegal". 

 

"Your friends are either people in prison, going to prison, or have just got out of prison".

 

"You're friends with gangsters . . .  You mean they've murdered people?! White people?! British people?!!!"

 

"Your painting of the man with a missing eye is a victim?!"

 

"I always feel that one can tell who the man is by looking at the son, and your son is a mess!" 

 

"The Keep it Unreal album sounds old, it's really poor quality, awful music, I've only listened to it five times in total and two were the day I bought it".

 

"Why is he singing Jos'? That's American, my name is JUST!"

 

"You called me crooked! and a terrorist! You turned me into a woman before an entire community! How dare you!" 

 

"Why would you think I'd want to meet celebrities? I'm not interested in celebrities, or fame, I'm not a TV watcher! and I'm also not interested in nightclubs". 

 

"I don't mind buying a CD from the store, but that doesn't mean I want to meet them, why would you even think like that?"

 

"I wouldn't want to meet David Bowie even if he had open house in Wakefield! I have lyrics on his last album and don't own a single CD of his!" 

 

"The best song he ever wrote was Saint in the City". 

 

"I had a copy of Live at the Beeb, they printed the song Ziggy Stardust twice, same song, no variation, it's stupid, makes him look an idiot, I had a copy of the CDs, I fell asleep on one of them and when I woke up in the morning it had snapped underneath me".

 

"I saw him on TV, he was vacuous. He seemed to insinuate he was a pedophile, I thought I hope to God nobody thinks I like this man! Turns out, those very people were all working with him!" 

 

"Can I bust Bowie?"

 

"You and Bowie are the last of the sixties psychos, the sixties psychos spoiled the philosophy of an entire generation". 

 

"You think I'm stupid for not grasping the Hours album, when nobody told me anything?! You've been visiting my bookstore for years with no idea. You're so primitive you probably thought JUST was a synchronicity". 

 

I cursed a country that Bob knew and loved, a country he had once lived in, I didn't hate the land or the people at all, I read Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, but I wanted to hurt Bob and I wanted to dissuade him from his illusion and wish fulfilment that I saw myself as Jesus, which I never had. I had always walked on egg shells not wanting to upset the man, my behaviour was the diametrical opposite of anything he had previously seen. I had also never been angry or nasty toward Russ, Al, or Cooper. There was Jib and the ex - 

 

"Jesus is the role of a moron. One would have to be a moron to die before the age of 70. The upper classes laugh at early-grave rockstar suicides".

 

"Your artwork's creepy, the fish you painted is ugly. That is one ugly fish! One can tell I'm not Jesus, if I were, God would have sent me a man who can sing and a man who can paint!" 

 

"I don't see the point at all in painting if you're not going to be the best at the art". 

 

 

To make sense of the Reality album; 

 

 

"When I was in high school I ran away from home and slept behind here for two nights under a clear cellophane sheet, it was winter". 

 

"He doesn't know me; he doesn't know anything about me!"

 

"I can't stand the line in the Pink Floyd song, "and there is time to kill today". 

 

"I thought it was four-hydroxytryptamine?"

 

"I need at least ten years breathing".

 

"See the Great White Scar?"

 

". . . in the movies the Hudson is where New York gangsters dump bodies".

 

"I love it when I wake up in the morning and beams of sunlight come in through the gaps in the curtains and I play with the particles in my hand". 

 

"I have an antique red carpet". 

 

"Can he be more specific with regards the demonic experience?" 

 

"HMV is an awful symbol, dogs listening to masters. We don't want people to be masters and we don't want people to be dogs!" 

 

"I'm not going to be Just a dog! Who would want to be Just a dog?" 

 

"I discovered that my Grandfather's birthday is on Egyptian New Year's day, it's been said that Sirius relativistically lines up behind the sun on this day, which begins the flooding of the Nile Delta. They call this day the Dog Days and it falls on the 23rd of July". 

 

"I'm the luckiest guy in the world".

 

"I will bring Saddam in!"

 

"I'll never get old, I don't age like humans". 

 

"Immortality is the human future. They'll develop an anti-aging pill, or be able to reverse aging genes".

 

"Even if the universe retracted, we'd have a technology to open up a wormhole in space for us to be able to tunnel through into an alternate universe". 

 

“Soul leaves the body quaquaversally, like the ringing of a bell”.  

 

"Buildings seem to take you back to the era they were created in; old buildings create old minds and new buildings new minds". 

 

"The Cathedral seems like an incredible building to me, almost like a rocket ship".

 

"I was looking up at the stone sculptures carved into the side of the County Hall building and a man with a briefcase walked past, he seemed proud that someone was taking time out to admire a structure within his city". 

 

"Water always looks pleasant on a hot sunny day, doesn't matter if it's a lake, a river, a pool, the sea. We're attracted to the water as a species because it's where we come from". 

 

"Everybody wants to take credit for having discovered me". 

 

"One can hide a house behind trees to make it seem invisible". 

 

"Don't be trying to make out I just take, I gave Russ a serious quantity of Salvia Divinorum for helping me move my belongings". 

 

"I pray she'll soothe my very soul, my head on her lap, she stroking my brow, endorphins rushing".

 

"I love the name Hope, it seems like a great name for a girl". 

 

"I'm better than you, I will achieve more than you, I will do more than you". 

 

"I'm leaving Wakefield, I've got a better way".

 

"I'll win in the end".

 

 

I spoke for around forty-five minutes in total until a friend of his interrupted us, Bob was silent for the most part, but he seemed to take in every word. Both the language and the mood state came back in rock albums, album titles, pop single videos and movies. All roads lead back to BB, it wasn't a democracy, he was an artist, he had connections, and he knew how to manipulate the field. Before he and his friend left, he walked right up to me, put his face close to mine, he was looking from one eye to the other and back again, I shirked back, like he was a devil.  

 

Author's Note

It's somewhat awkward at the moment, but I will edit when I can.