David Lynch Blues
It Never Snows In Florida
By Machiavelli
Jimmie's been a squatter for a couple of years now. He generally keeps to the Newcal subways; they're usually pretty warm, and plus he can raid the vending machines if he comes across any spare change. A couple of years ago, one of the machines broke and started spitting out candy bars everywhere; he must've grabbed twenty or thirty before security showed up. He lived for a couple of weeks off of that one; still has most of the wrappers in his sax case.
He's been playing the sax for maybe eight months. He isn't great at it; usually it'll only net him a couple of quarters when he plays in the subway. But it gives him something to do, and something to call his own. He managed to scrap up enough to buy a new reed a couple of weeks ago. It was worth it, kinda; he still plays like shit. But least it doesn't go nuts sometimes, like the other one did.
It sometimes gets him in trouble, though. Like a couple of days ago, for example. He was having a beer, fresh out of the machine, when this Hispanic guy in a suit comes up to him. Jimmie didn't notice him at first – in fact, didn't notice him at all until the guy pulled out a gun and puts it to Jimmie's neck, just like that.
"Listen up, shitbag," said the guy. Speaks with a Midwest accent. "Only reason you're not dead now is because you don't know shit, okay ?"
"Okay," said Jimmie. He didn't know what else to say.
"Me and my employers, we own this subway, okay ? We say what goes on, we say what gets played. Either you stop playing that thing, or we shoot your ass dead. You got it ?"
"I got it," said Jimmie.
"That's good," said the suit. Then he kicked Jimmie right in the lower ribs. Jimmie hit his head against the wall and lost consciousness; he came to a couple hours later in a puddle of Budweiser. The suit was gone, but there was a rolled-up business card shoved up Jimmie's nose. He pulled it out and took at a look at it – it just said, in small type:
RSC. www.umi.com
Jimmie hasn't touched a computer in three years. So he just threw it out, and hasn't played his sax since.
Now it's maybe one or two in the morning. Jimmie's trying to get some sleep. He's sleeping next to the storage lockers, right underneath the security camera – which is the only place you can sleep around here. If they see you this close to the lockers, they'll get nervous and send a cop to chase you off. But as long as the camera can't see you, you're fine. Jimmie's sitting up against the wall; he's got his head propped up against his sax case.
But he can't sleep. Can't tell you why – he used to the lights being on all the time. So eventually he gives up and just stares up at the ceiling. There's a picture spray-painted up there that he likes – that's why he sleeps around here. It's this beautiful woman, done in blues and greens. She has this smile on her face that Jimmie can't really describe – it's sort of sweet and sort of tired, and it makes him think of Florida. That was where he grew up, before they evacuated everybody to Mars; he still misses the palm trees sometimes.
"She doesn't really exist, you know." Voice from behind Jimmie.
Jimmie's up in his feet in the next second, sax case in hand, heart pounding. The guy just keeps staring up at the ceiling. He's white, got these little glasses on that Jimmie can barely see. And he's just staring up at the ceiling, at the girl.
"Fuck, man, you scared me," says Jimmie.
"She's not a real person," the guy says. Still looking up. "She's an idea that someone had a very long time ago. An angel of redemption, who sees all and understands everything. An impossibility in this day and age. Or, at least, in the world as it exists."
You see a lot of druggies down in the subway. Shit, Jimmie used to do acid a long time ago, back when he could afford it. He starts to relax.
Then the man turns his gaze downward. Looks at Jimmie right in the eye.
And Jimmie can't move. He's paralyzed, with the only thing in his mind something screaming in the back of his head like a banshee. Because the man's got eyes like four hundred watt bulbs – the kind that looks straight through you right down into your soul, and doesn't like what it sees there. The kind of eyes God has on a bad day.
"But ideas have power," says the man.
Then he looks over Jimmie's shoulder at something. Jimmie does too, reflexively. And sees the Hispanic walking towards them, with five guys following him. Every one of them has a gun out.
"Run," says the man.
Jimmie doesn't need a cue. He jumps past him and runs like the devil, for maybe fifteen or twenty paces. Then he realizes he isn't holding his sax case anymore, so he stops, and that's right when a bullet whips straight past his shoulder. So he notices there's a woman's bathroom right next to him in the wall; he dives through the door before he can think about it, and just huddles there underneath the frame. And then the screaming starts from down the hall.
A little while later, it stops. Jimmie waits a little while longer, then pokes his head out of the door.
There's a lot of bodies and a lot of blood, he notices. And in the middle of it all, there's the guy with the glasses. He's holding Jimmie's sax case.
He grips the doorframe and pulls himself up. He walks towards the guy. "Hey."
The guy ignores him. He opens up the case, shifts through the wrappers. Like he's looking for something.
"Hey, man, that's mine."
The guy turns and looks at him. And Jimmie suddenly realizes that that's a shitload of blood on the floor.
The man turns back to the case, pulls something out. It's wrapped in paper – Jimmie doesn't recognize it. The guy pulls the paper off the thing with his hand; turns out to be a card, like a moneycard or something. Jimmie doesn't have any shit like that.
The guy turns to one of the lockers in the wall. Feeds in the card. Presses his hand to the print reader.
The locker pops open, just like that. A little idiot voice says, somewhere within its guts, "Noite boa, senior John Keats. Nós agradecemo-lo usando U-Stor-o. Nós esperamo-lo temos um dia agradável." It starts to spit out a receipt.
The guy reaches into the machine and pulls out something. It's some kind of machine, box-shaped, with all kinds of buttons sticking out on the side. It fits into the palm of the guy's hand. The way he holds it, it's like he's got a wedding ring in his hand.
Then Jimmie recognizes the thing. His dad had one, back in Florida.
"That's a tape recorder," he says, before he can stop himself.
And then the man's turned around, and he's looking at Jimmie straight in the eye. And Jimmie remembers the bodies on the floor, and the blood. And he realizes he never even heard a single gunshot, and the guy doesn't have a scratch on him, and has blood all over his hands. Even the one he's got the tape recorder in.
"Take care of yourself," says the man. And he holds out Jimmie's sax case.
Jimmie takes it. And the man turns and walks off. Just like that.
Two weeks later, Jimmie's dead. He's shot by a cop in the Aruba subway, trying to make a run for it. The cop needed some extra arrests for his record, so he'd tried to pick up Jimmie for loitering. Naturally, it didn't work out that way, so the cop dropped off the body with a friend of his in Forensics and hocked Jimmie's sax in at a local pawnshop. The cop figured he'd done worst things in his life, and besides, there was a lot of pressure from City Hall these days to keep the subways clear. The election was in a couple of weeks, after all.
A couple of days before, Jimmie played his sax out on the streets. He ended up with a crowd of kids watching him; most of them were stoned. The exception was this nine-year-old by the name of Ronnie, who was just tagging along with his older brother. And sometimes in the years to come, Ronnie would vaguely remember this song he once heard, about a smiling woman and palm trees, and some place called Florida…
It Never Snows In Florida
By Machiavelli
Jimmie's been a squatter for a couple of years now. He generally keeps to the Newcal subways; they're usually pretty warm, and plus he can raid the vending machines if he comes across any spare change. A couple of years ago, one of the machines broke and started spitting out candy bars everywhere; he must've grabbed twenty or thirty before security showed up. He lived for a couple of weeks off of that one; still has most of the wrappers in his sax case.
He's been playing the sax for maybe eight months. He isn't great at it; usually it'll only net him a couple of quarters when he plays in the subway. But it gives him something to do, and something to call his own. He managed to scrap up enough to buy a new reed a couple of weeks ago. It was worth it, kinda; he still plays like shit. But least it doesn't go nuts sometimes, like the other one did.
It sometimes gets him in trouble, though. Like a couple of days ago, for example. He was having a beer, fresh out of the machine, when this Hispanic guy in a suit comes up to him. Jimmie didn't notice him at first – in fact, didn't notice him at all until the guy pulled out a gun and puts it to Jimmie's neck, just like that.
"Listen up, shitbag," said the guy. Speaks with a Midwest accent. "Only reason you're not dead now is because you don't know shit, okay ?"
"Okay," said Jimmie. He didn't know what else to say.
"Me and my employers, we own this subway, okay ? We say what goes on, we say what gets played. Either you stop playing that thing, or we shoot your ass dead. You got it ?"
"I got it," said Jimmie.
"That's good," said the suit. Then he kicked Jimmie right in the lower ribs. Jimmie hit his head against the wall and lost consciousness; he came to a couple hours later in a puddle of Budweiser. The suit was gone, but there was a rolled-up business card shoved up Jimmie's nose. He pulled it out and took at a look at it – it just said, in small type:
RSC. www.umi.com
Jimmie hasn't touched a computer in three years. So he just threw it out, and hasn't played his sax since.
Now it's maybe one or two in the morning. Jimmie's trying to get some sleep. He's sleeping next to the storage lockers, right underneath the security camera – which is the only place you can sleep around here. If they see you this close to the lockers, they'll get nervous and send a cop to chase you off. But as long as the camera can't see you, you're fine. Jimmie's sitting up against the wall; he's got his head propped up against his sax case.
But he can't sleep. Can't tell you why – he used to the lights being on all the time. So eventually he gives up and just stares up at the ceiling. There's a picture spray-painted up there that he likes – that's why he sleeps around here. It's this beautiful woman, done in blues and greens. She has this smile on her face that Jimmie can't really describe – it's sort of sweet and sort of tired, and it makes him think of Florida. That was where he grew up, before they evacuated everybody to Mars; he still misses the palm trees sometimes.
"She doesn't really exist, you know." Voice from behind Jimmie.
Jimmie's up in his feet in the next second, sax case in hand, heart pounding. The guy just keeps staring up at the ceiling. He's white, got these little glasses on that Jimmie can barely see. And he's just staring up at the ceiling, at the girl.
"Fuck, man, you scared me," says Jimmie.
"She's not a real person," the guy says. Still looking up. "She's an idea that someone had a very long time ago. An angel of redemption, who sees all and understands everything. An impossibility in this day and age. Or, at least, in the world as it exists."
You see a lot of druggies down in the subway. Shit, Jimmie used to do acid a long time ago, back when he could afford it. He starts to relax.
Then the man turns his gaze downward. Looks at Jimmie right in the eye.
And Jimmie can't move. He's paralyzed, with the only thing in his mind something screaming in the back of his head like a banshee. Because the man's got eyes like four hundred watt bulbs – the kind that looks straight through you right down into your soul, and doesn't like what it sees there. The kind of eyes God has on a bad day.
"But ideas have power," says the man.
Then he looks over Jimmie's shoulder at something. Jimmie does too, reflexively. And sees the Hispanic walking towards them, with five guys following him. Every one of them has a gun out.
"Run," says the man.
Jimmie doesn't need a cue. He jumps past him and runs like the devil, for maybe fifteen or twenty paces. Then he realizes he isn't holding his sax case anymore, so he stops, and that's right when a bullet whips straight past his shoulder. So he notices there's a woman's bathroom right next to him in the wall; he dives through the door before he can think about it, and just huddles there underneath the frame. And then the screaming starts from down the hall.
A little while later, it stops. Jimmie waits a little while longer, then pokes his head out of the door.
There's a lot of bodies and a lot of blood, he notices. And in the middle of it all, there's the guy with the glasses. He's holding Jimmie's sax case.
He grips the doorframe and pulls himself up. He walks towards the guy. "Hey."
The guy ignores him. He opens up the case, shifts through the wrappers. Like he's looking for something.
"Hey, man, that's mine."
The guy turns and looks at him. And Jimmie suddenly realizes that that's a shitload of blood on the floor.
The man turns back to the case, pulls something out. It's wrapped in paper – Jimmie doesn't recognize it. The guy pulls the paper off the thing with his hand; turns out to be a card, like a moneycard or something. Jimmie doesn't have any shit like that.
The guy turns to one of the lockers in the wall. Feeds in the card. Presses his hand to the print reader.
The locker pops open, just like that. A little idiot voice says, somewhere within its guts, "Noite boa, senior John Keats. Nós agradecemo-lo usando U-Stor-o. Nós esperamo-lo temos um dia agradável." It starts to spit out a receipt.
The guy reaches into the machine and pulls out something. It's some kind of machine, box-shaped, with all kinds of buttons sticking out on the side. It fits into the palm of the guy's hand. The way he holds it, it's like he's got a wedding ring in his hand.
Then Jimmie recognizes the thing. His dad had one, back in Florida.
"That's a tape recorder," he says, before he can stop himself.
And then the man's turned around, and he's looking at Jimmie straight in the eye. And Jimmie remembers the bodies on the floor, and the blood. And he realizes he never even heard a single gunshot, and the guy doesn't have a scratch on him, and has blood all over his hands. Even the one he's got the tape recorder in.
"Take care of yourself," says the man. And he holds out Jimmie's sax case.
Jimmie takes it. And the man turns and walks off. Just like that.
Two weeks later, Jimmie's dead. He's shot by a cop in the Aruba subway, trying to make a run for it. The cop needed some extra arrests for his record, so he'd tried to pick up Jimmie for loitering. Naturally, it didn't work out that way, so the cop dropped off the body with a friend of his in Forensics and hocked Jimmie's sax in at a local pawnshop. The cop figured he'd done worst things in his life, and besides, there was a lot of pressure from City Hall these days to keep the subways clear. The election was in a couple of weeks, after all.
A couple of days before, Jimmie played his sax out on the streets. He ended up with a crowd of kids watching him; most of them were stoned. The exception was this nine-year-old by the name of Ronnie, who was just tagging along with his older brother. And sometimes in the years to come, Ronnie would vaguely remember this song he once heard, about a smiling woman and palm trees, and some place called Florida…