Lawrence Upton

 

 

Untitled

 

 

a gate-leg table, with both flaps down, surmounted by a typewriter containing no paper, surmounted by an unpublished essay, surmounted by luncheon vouchers about three years old; to the left of the typewriter, a green power tester, although it is to my right; adjacent and partially under the tester, numerous papers relating to the essay; beneath the papers relating to the essay, further papers; and, showing on the far side of the tester, a pair of scissors, beneath a folded-open copy of a magazine; at the far feet (from me) of the gate-leg table, a pair of blue underpants, washed or unwashed, a litter canister, cut 1/3 by the line of the carpet; beneath the carpet, a gate-leg table, with both flaps down, surmounted by a number of things, the nearest of which is a Lettera 32 portable typewriter (red & white ribbon), surmounted by someone's essay; beside the typewriter, a green-handled power tester; behind the typewriter, various papers; to my left, of the table, the cat's box, standing on a coffee table; box of "Swan" matches behind the deodorant spray, for sweaty feet, standing on a postcard; and also on that postcard is something circular; beside the spray, a started box of matches; behind the matches, a copper coin bag, containing pennies, protruding; beneath the coffee table, another table and, on it, a greetings card; beside me, an upturned empty cardboard box; on the chair beside me, a cup of black tea; underneath the table, a dirty shirt, a folded journal; on the shelf of the coffee table, two TV listings ... the curtains of the window are open, showing the blackness outside, the curtains at the room divider closed (it is night); in the grate, an electric lamp, connected to the power but not yet switched on; beside it, in series to the same plug, a radio; behind the cat's box etc, a sideboard, surmounted by a TV, surmounted by papers and files, surmounted by an aerial, drawers open, more files, papers fallen down, behind, beneath, and in front of which an easy chair containing a cat... a green gate-leg table with both flaps down, surmounted by a typewriter with the carriage extended to the left, though not fully so; behind the typewriter, various papers, what looks like a book surmounted by a pair of scissors, and bric-a-brac; before the table, a coffee table, surmounted by a cardboard box in which the cat sleeps; beside the cardboard box, a foot spray, a bag of copper, a box of matches and various odds and ends; on the shelf of the coffee table, two television programmes; nearer than that, to the left, a gas fire with a special control, which costs extra, a hiss of escaping gas and the expected colour of gas flame; underneath the gas fire, matches, greasy rags and apple cores, in the middle of which stands a disconnected table lamp and a radio with a broken aerial; the carpet is badly soiled; the television is showing a situation drama set in the second world war; underneath the coffee table, various items of stationery and a copy of "Teach Yourself French"; under the gate-leg table, a black and white cat, washing in front of the gas fire... on top of the television, a box file; into the right-hand drawer of the sideboard, a number of ring-files and other papers; out of the window, one, no two, trees; and, in front of the fire, three armchairs...

 

 

 

 

Vivacity

 

for Cris Cheek

 

I could be barking up the wrong tree but there's something going on here. I can smell it. Lots of people milling about I'm not even asked to inspect, although I must say they don't stop me looking. Pressure on me about my appearance and precious little sensible work. Now it's all to do with how I look. There's nothing to guard any more and plenty to guard against.

 

My job... is important. Questions in; answers out. It's a matter of open government. If you know the answers and you have the will the doors can be opened. We can stop the total state with care. Like: open, government. [Laughs] Like in Aladdin. You see? Living between two angry giants - the usual ones - you get used to surviving on the relief of weak humour. I process response. Without me... there'd be... All the country is like me. Our lives, our families, our homes. What we want is what matters. We are society.

 

It's not our fault it's loused up. They've stopped listening to the ordinary man. It's not just... it's just... We need laws with teeth. The government must be doing something. And when the government sees that the people aren't with them, yes, they'll have to change or else they won't get reelected. And that's what they want more than anything. It's symbiotic relationship and it's the fleas' turn now, yes. [Coughs]

 

A TV Mr Fritz? they say; a refrigerator Mr Fritz they say. All your food's in powder form, a matter of reconstitution with water. And everything's geared to labour-saving home-life for the workers. The real workers. Without us it'd crumble. When the door's open you go through it. When you want that door opened you make the signal. So what if things take time? You're dealing with ordinary people. They're not that bright you know. These things can't be changed. You have to bring them round to your point of view slowly. Lao Tze said that the true leader is never in the van.

 

I accumulate treasures. I bury them under my accumulation. I rough them up with my connivance and condescension and compliance. [Coughs] Meaty chunks. Good. Physical affection. Good. You take what you get. Don't try for want you can't get and most of all you don't jeopardise what you have got. Look. You know with most on them you'll only get fifty or sixty per cent. The rest is all trying to catch the arbiter's attention and giving in to hysteria.

 

Claws you keep sheathed and ready. You keep clean and alert. Visibly. And trust is a tool. I never trust. Roll on your back, maybe. Close your eyes into the light with someone. Maybe. That's all very well. But I never trust. I give trust and, more importantly, I am trusted. I am relied upon. Perpetuation of the species and one thing at a time. Guilt and love and trust and smiles are the things I pawn for my happinesses.

 

Leading me up the garden path!

 

An equal eye suffices, not an egalitarian. At night when the door's shut there's time enough for relaxation. Perpetuation of the species and of personal power. My jaws threatening. My stomach full. Time enough then to be pretty. You've got to keep your little circle of sensuality, no matter what any on them say. Sacks of meat and beer on two legs. With two minds most on them and the brains hardly functioning. Can you imagine the taste of all that rancid meat their desires walk around? The life force activating corpses.

 

Square heads; square balls. [Walks off somewhere, gesturing, remaining in view] You have to get inside their brains, find out how they're thinking, and guide them. In most cases there's no more than a third on them there. The balance is you, finding out what it is they need to be, to respond, and responding with them. Like, with a pet, saying "come on then; come on" and "there's a good boy". But how much more important this is in relationships. And especially so when it's close. The weak must be helped by the strong. The weak come first or everything'll disintegrate. The surrogate and the real must be hand in glove. Keep out the cold, eh? Keep in the warm. [Stares ahead a while]

 

It's a lack of concentration and a lack of attention... Things'll be all right if they have room to grow. And not enough fear of consequences. People must be free to develop and that means having all the information and that means having balanced information. Egalitarianism doesn't work without discipline and guidance... I have to do a lot of running in my job. I dream a bit you know. I don't mean to kick them. In fact sometimes it's unwilling or by accident or misadventure. But a few insults help. Like a blood pump. Contracts, expands; contracts, expands; contracts expands the natural rhythm. The blood flows in the middle path between those... I dream. It's largely a matter of keeping awake. What helps is the knowledge I have to carry the can. Garbage in, garbage out. It's cosmetic. My job's to see things as they really are. I have that in common with those throwing bricks. The outsiders. Some want the outside. Some don't. Only they don't see the solutions. Everything is easy for them. [Long silence]

 

Balanced. Balanced and liberal. Panting in the bedroom. Back and forth. Left and right, making the dinner; keeping control. You have to have organisation with the sick and needy waiting. The heavy ones outside would steal everything you've accumulated. Waste will denude it. Carelessness will break it. They all get too boisterous, all on them... Sometimes I think I'm flying. Better than falling. Or am a fish and swimming. Listening to the radio. Listening to the record-player. We need a new one. The old one keeps crackling. Every time you go near the window the sound goes fuzzy. Have to kick the speaker leads. The amplifier wearing out. On and off all day while I'm working. [Very long pause in which he goes aimlessly about the space]

 

Fresh meat smells like piss. I walk into the kitchen. It's the physicality gets me sometimes. The idea of eating something other than oneself. Matter of technique I suppose. If she's washed it it's not so bad. [Laughs] Our bodies are quite strong over what they can take. You are what you eat. Ha. No man is an island. I am involved in mankind. I've read all that stuff. The tests between Protestantism and Catholicism all in one man's head. The dialectical process as my wife would say. There's nothing out there. The seeing eye and the object seen.

 

I don't like the idea of class warfare. Fighting and waste of resources. We need to find a way through. Not remaking of our systems or throwing out the people who make the wealth. Not at all. That scares me. We need to make the systems operate and we have to apply them rigorously. One thing at a time. Precis was about the most useful thing I learned at school. I use it even now. What she'd call my methodology. Gets you to see what isn't essential.

 

[As to a distant person] oh no absolutely not.

 

[as if another were beside him and he were at his desk] you see you haven't got this at all right. It makes some kind of sense on its own but you are ignoring so much information that I have you, and you are forgetting the purpose of why we're doing this. It's not just a matter of sums and phrasing. It has to be an effective statement to the world

 

[to a distance again] just leave it there will you? ta

 

[and desk again] It has to work each and every time. We're handling others' money here. Whatever job you do you're a custodian. I know it sounds pompous. The main thing is, remembering that, not to antagonise them. That wastes time making defences and that disrupts the day

 

[to a half distance] well I've enquired after their family background and referred the nephew for reports

 

[close - possibly affectionate] yes, I appreciate that

 

[talking to a class, making his progress] and you will find that in due course the rioters will disperse of their free will caused by nausea, blindness and incontinence. The wind shakes in the trees, the fruit is rotten and the sun shines through the bared open book. Tonight we are going to look at distribution

 

[nudging his neighbour] and fall asleep. Ha!

 

[at a party, to someone four or five feet away] Do you want some beer? Very good? Home brewery. Well I need to know because I have to go out in the cold to get it.

 

[laughing] yes

 

[picks up a telephone] hallo? yes, you have the wrong number. Right? Yes. Right. By-e

 

In my back of the head sensations I am flying all the time. I am not on the ground. Out in the winter weather, under the connecting telephone lines, I'm there and then I'm not there. I'm falling. Wake up in the middle of the night, the other one snoring, on her back, blank face, and find myself to be quite small. Or find myself to be quite large. It's always so long until morning. One day after another, keeping the castle keep together...

 

[Singing] And when they were only half-way up, they were neither up nor down. [Coughs] Ha-ha, half-way up... What you think's vivacity often isn't. You see someone and it gets you in -- well, it gets you. You want to be near it. You want to be part of it. Want that vivacity around you. It affected me. It took me over. You want it so much you start to direct it. It's a matter of respect. If you have it, what you finish doing is keeping each other up to scratch... You bring out what's loveable in each other... It helps to keep you going... Maybe you aren't going where you thought you were going, but no way will you back off, sliding back down... You go chasing after good life and when you've got it you find it's not that lively at all. You worry and worry but the vivacity's gone. Or it's playing possum.

 

Hack writers sometimes give the best descriptions of marriage, well of anything really, although their usual concern is with marriage. [Singing to the Alma Cogan tune] Love and marriage, love and marriage. Et cetera. Most on them simplify. How we'd all like it to be. How we want to be responded to. Less realism, less experimentation, and less theory in the story. And that way they show the consequences of our desires. It's quite clear when we simplify, even if it is ridiculous. The kinds of ways we want to live. Cutting the crap and getting down to it. You have to be pragmatic.

 

And all these things are held together. In any society it is certain knowledge which brings peace. It's not possible to get all people autonomous, operationally autonomous, there'll always be some who have to be led. It's training not education we need for security. You can't build stability on a word. Books don't make foundations. It's too... It's too atonal. That's all I can think as an example. Like you wake up in the dark and find the legs of the bed gone and you're on your way down legs and back and frame and mattress and duvet. Someone says "well I thought the legs were on the bed". Or they say "Why should the legs come off in the middle of the night?" There's always someone wants to engage in: developmental thinking. Garbage in; garbage out. Either side of the head two vastnesses and our lives spent between. [Threatening] I get this marauder, he'd broken into my place, up in a corner and kept him there. It was fun and I was quite happy to go on playing. So long as he'd cooperate. It was quite as good as wandering round with nothing to guard. Even what you're guarding puts up resistance, even walls and machines, seems like it anyway, and it's a bit wearing when something that can't or shouldn't resist does. I mean you don't know how to control what doesn't need controlling. When there's a spark and give and take there's nothing to attack. Only bullies go for that, but you have to put down nonsense. That's the skill of it and taking responsibility, knowing what to expunge and what to let stand. You delete or you change or you leave well alone. It's a matter of common sense usually. I tend not to get it wrong. You don't even know how to control what doesn't need controlling. So to have something that meant business was quite pleasant. Kept the brain moving and the results were sure to impress. He'd try to go forward, and I knew he couldn't back off in the hole he'd got into [Laughs] and I'd make a move. And he'd think that things'd change presently and he'd stay still. Course, they didn't. He'd sit or I'd sit so I'd sit and he'd sit. He'd stand and I'd stand. [Smiles] Sometimes he'd say something and we'd have a talk or I'd start it cos I got so embarrassed. Maybe he wasn't a marauder. I couldn't be sure. You're let off your chain and there's this chap looking reasonably at home in your place and you think well I'd better get some information before I start the blood. And really you know I have no desire for blood. Woof! The trouble was I could never get anything concrete out of him about the things that matter. Like who he was. People don't go round wearing name tags. Know a dog's name and you know his business - if it comes off the name tag. The tag's design says his occupation. If it's the crap that nine out of ten handlers prefer then you may guess this dog needs handling or someone wants you to think he does. Why don't they just paint blood around his jaws? Scratched on a circular disc, then he's a pet. Then there's the half-way bastards that turn on you, most on them out here in the suburbs. But here I was with a biped and his body covered and just as likely to act contrary. No categorisation, no discipline. Don't tell me otherwise. Most of the time we spent talking about walls we'd pissed against. Me dealing with the smells and him with the look of it spraying back, and neither of us really into it but it passed the time. Then he'd try to take a step forward and I'd make a growling noise and once I tried to tell him I had a self-destruct mechanism and I'd atomise the area. But that didn't work.

 

He did know how much influence I have and how fond of me they are. Kept telling me it's hypocrisy. Wanted to distinguish between fondness I'd deserved and fondness I'd secured. I've earned that regard I said and he spat phlegm all over me. I could have hurt him. Next thing I know they drag me out back and tie me up there. Plenty of food and never a thing to guard and all the time I can hear him in there with them turning this and that round. Pissing against the wood stacks too no doubt. Laughing. I was bugged by that man. They kept him on, striding round with a big stick, riding shot gun in my place! Woof! I'm not really a dog. You di'n't know that. I think like one cos it's the safest way. Bits and pieces of behaviour to save me from starvation. I'm not young any more and I want to live my time. Most on them burn themselves out while they're still puppies.

 

Next thing I know it all goes quiet. Just after a big load of noise. And that's turned out to be removing most of the stuff I used to have because when I go back all the good stuff's gone. And the marauder comes up to me and says he doesn't want the place, that he's cleaned it up, that I'm good, that he likes me a lot really; and I could see that he was lying because they were watching him and listening and I could smell he was afraid. And he says that now I can have all that empty space and that I won't have to guard it but just play. What's the use of a yard to play in if you don't guard it?