Michelle's girlfriend, the nymphomaniac.
“Sunday. June 30th, 7:30 a.m. After writing the preceding bit, I grew restless and paced about in indecision for fifteen minutes, wanting company. (Ali, Lindsey’s brother had stopped by Jim’s several times that month and left a number). I called Lindsey to see what was up, sort of fishing for her. He answered and said she’d be out till late. I drove back to Berkeley still not sure who I might find or what I wanted to do. At Jim’s house loud music of some African kind was welling out of a neighbors window, annoying me. I went to my bank for more money to get more speed. I was high, the two hours of rest and the two last lines of rather poor stuff perking me up, making me want to get higher. I considered going to the Med. after that errand and writing. But the hot Saturday afternoon seemed too ridiculous a time for that, carrying books and notebook in my hand, up and down streets where no one else does that and sitting studious where no one else will be.
“I drove to the warehouse. John was sitting in the back room of a young neighbor who was taking a base lesson at that moment. The door was open, John in the back not paying attention to the two near the door and trying to eat cottage cheese from its plastic container. We removed to his room, sat lazily for a half hour trying to form our evening plan. We both felt burnt and thought a dinner and beers at ‘Brennan's’ the best thing for us. I still kept to the crazy notion of getting more ‘S’ later on and John was agreeable. So we left and stopped at Martin’s on the way. There Martin was alone and in a good mood. I had just met him the week before briefly, for the first time. But in the interval John had praised his intellects and said he would be a prime candidate for a ‘bohemian’ club when we first proposed it. So we sat at the kitchen table, broke out some lines and talked. First John and he fiddled with a tiny microphone and batteries while I stood very spacey and silent by. Then we bantered about a planned video movie John was to shoot soon, then about L.S.D., a few experiences (my caveman trip at Anno Nuevo beach), how it operated and why I quit”.
I had a theory that as the mind ages it gets less flexible and more breakable, from rubber to glass, and L.S.D. required flexibility.
“Martin is tall and healthy looking, a little skinny, in jogging shorts and T-shirt, a flock of curly, brown hair and a trim beard. He talks with a controlled accent and a learned vocabulary, liking hard words. He seemed to be a serious Grad. student but with fairly broad knowledge and interests and humor, not sunk in petty discipline. I assumed he was near my age. Feeling highly restored now we went upstairs for some beers. He had to feed his friends cats there (Mat’s). John was trifling with some gadgets lying about and not talking. Martin had mentioned starting a research firm and moving to an apartment with business space. I questioned him as to what type of research. He said sociology, historical trends, development paradigms of relevance to modern businesses. I told him of my classical and historical studies and began to discourse, almost eloquently, on the proposition, pointing out that the most effort would lay in the structuring of information in the format and vocabulary used by the client business, that one would have to divine what the client subliminally wished to hear — subtle optimism — and that anything can be extrapolated from historical evidences.
“As I was saying this I began thinking deeper into the matter, pondering aloud ways it could be done, mentioning one research company that tracked banking news, an information broker, drawing up reports for all and sundry. But this had more ambitious potential, extracting wisdom from history through parallels, and making formulations, though I mentioned the common prejudice about its applicability to the modern world. He excepted political science, as they study historical patterns.
Then he questioned me on our ability to analyze early historians and draw useful information from them”.
This set me off on a whole rundown of ancient historians in chronological order noting each one’s merits and limitations, an hour-long speech, down to Francis Bacon. He had to go somewhere so we parted with a handshake, new friends.
“On our way back to the warehouse John and I stopped for hamburgers. I hadn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours. We returned to John’s room. I finished off three quarters the hamburger, threw the rest away, drank a ‘Coors’ and felt a thoughtless but extremely pleasant calm descend upon me with the cool evening air. We sat in silence enjoying this peace, broken only by a few light remarks and well wishes for friends. Then Bruno comes in. We had just been thinking of hanging out with him for the evening. We go to his pad. John took his video camera. I picked up a copy of Gibbon to leaf through, and John photographs me reading and Bruno also putting things in order. Bruno leaves for four hours. John and I begin a conversation, one of the best we’ve had, as far as mutual satisfaction and enlightenment. I’m extremely tired right now and can’t conjure up the energy to recall everything but the topic was human kindness, benevolence, active nobility as the one undeniable good, beautiful to behold, satisfying like no other satisfactions…At three Bruno returns and we talked for two hours on multitudes of great ideas. We were all very lucid. We talked of love, types of love, compatibility…our imaginations fostering dreams that put us beyond the realms of love and intellect, though all these things, as Bruno pointed out, are connected. John told me at one point that I was immature with women, from lack of experience and much contact with them. And he is right but I didn’t think it showed so much”…Much more talk on specific books, pulling them off shelves, (Bruno had a good collection), doing more lines".
My intellectual (and physical) stamina at this time amazes me. Just to re-read the wide range of topics covered wearies me now and the fact that I wrote it all down before sleep is even more impressive. But such is youth!
So begins my two months of warehouse living and my quick devolution into an overuse of speed. There was too much of it around. On any given night, many doors were open, inviting company and in one at least, some party would start. Also I was quickly approaching my thirtieth birthday, which held a vague significance to me of passing youth and a time for change. So I partied it up in a frenzy, as if these were the last days I could do so and I was in the right place for that. It was also the right time. The middle-aged, white owner of the building devised his greedy plan of cutting it up into living spaces two years earlier without permits. It was shut down and everyone kicked out by some city inspectors happening to drop by less than a year after I left, for numerous safety violations.
It was a bad plan all-round, cheap rooms all connected and rented to young white rebels. There wasn’t a single black resident there. He chose his first tenants by interview, in a drug and prostitute-ridden Black slum. It was a recipe for disaster and a wonder it lasted as long as it did. Only Bruno on the bottom floor, and Michelle next door, could manage the flow of visitors to their rooms, by being out of the way, down many stairs and in the back. Bruno and Claire lived there two years in relative peace and quiet, with friends only dropping by when invited. Michelle had a heavy French accent. I met him one night upstairs at a party and we talked a little French. I told him I had a great French book I could lend him and which he should read, Murger’s ‘Scenes de la Vie de la Boheme’. So I knocked on his door one evening with the book in my hand. He let me in and sure enough, his girlfriend, the fabled nymphomaniac, was sitting on the edge of his loft bed, legs hanging over the edge, in jeans and a white blouse, with the top three buttons undone. She joined us at the table and Michelle motioned to her shirt and did up one button. She was skinny with long, straight black hair and a pretty face and piercing eyes that stared straight through you, as if she had a demon inside her. Almost any man would jump in bed with her in an instant.
He could never let her out of his sight and kept her there, almost like a jailed woman, feeding her and servicing her to her satisfaction, as she did stay with him. Only her reputation slipped out of that room, (through Michelle’s inability not to boast) and was whispered in the halls. When he let me in we sat down at the table and had a pleasant conversation for a half hour, she silent and staring at me. Then he had to go to the bathroom which was across the hall. He was away a few minutes and in that short time she rubbed her leg against mine under the table, stroked my hand and leaned forward with her face. He burst back in the door catching her at this. He apologized to me and described straight out her problem (right in front of her) and that he was taking care of her out of kindness (and frequent sex). If she slipped out into the world she’d immediate fall into deep trouble. I could see that and agreed he was doing her a favor. I then left, as a friend.
It’s amazing that I ran into him two years later working with Allen far up north. He was broke and Allen had been supporting him for at least a year. The girl was long gone, who knows to what fate. He was astonished to see me and told Allen what a great guy I was, which helped out in our first business transactions. I asked him for my copy of Murger back. He said he was sorry but didn’t have it. I spent about six weeks living with Allen and Michelle on and off, over four months’ time. This was in 1986. In 88 when I moved to Upper Lake, he was still with Allen in another house. We did him a favor so he could move back to France with some money. That was the last I saw of him. I’m sure Allen was tired of him too and suggested it for that reason.
