Chapter 17
LA
Bangkok was hot and humid; it blasted you the minute you descended from the plane. I slept on the floor of the transit lounge for three nights, waiting for a connecting flight. It was a tingling kind of airport Disneyland. But, I was now in the FOURTH VORTEX. It was Southeast Asia.
BRRING
“Hello?”
“Will you accept a collect call from a Mr. Finberg?”
DEAD SILENCE
“Yes, all right .... “
AIRPORT DIN ....
“I’m in Bangkok now and I’m coming home!”
SILENCE
“I think I’m in shock!”
“WELL, you know, this certainly wasn’t my idea!”
SILENCE
“But, we’re leaving for New York now .... “
AIRPORT DIN
“I don’t care. I want someone waiting for me at LAX, do you understand?”
Click ....
And did it flow?
FUCK YES! it’s solidity in glaciers, these icebergs, iceflows ....
I treated myself to some hot curry. Will Schindler’s List get Stevie his Oscar? What else is on cable TV? Hum, it’s just Whitewater, watching the planes go by, Asia seems to be booming here, these antsy Thai women always hovering around you as you browse around the gift-shops. You know, when I arrived in Nepal, I began to miss India, and now that I’m here, I’m beginning to miss Nepal! It’s so phony this air-conditioned feeding frenzy. I think there’s something missing here.
May I have your attention please ....
Seoul ..... Shit, I’ve landed in the FIFTH VORTEX through some accident and the Koreans here seem pretty uptight. Some kind of nuclear chicken is going on with the North. But all the signs say VISIT KOREA 94, yet things are still in a bardo phase here. The Cold War is not over and memories of juntas linger on.
And did it flow?
Perfectly! Its noxiousness, its effluvia in lacurstine marshes, pestilential fens, these faded flower-waters, these stagnant pools in the waning moon.
So, out of an airplane window:
I could see the flat stressed-out landscape of Los Angeles, I would soon be home now. For I was near the SIXTH VORTEX, and Cuba and Nicaragua were not far away. It was usually a pretty sleepy vortex, but it could occasionally provide chilling suspense. I felt this incompleteness as the lights blinked on their warnings of an approaching landing. I saw a nude Chinese girl commit suicide inside a bathtub. It was just a movie. And then the plane wheels screeched and whirred, with a THUD .... and this was home. And I was alone. And this too was it.
