The Fall

*

The thoughts were all twisted around inside, hollow of substance, insubstantial of will, everything coalescing. He needed to be free again. He didn't know what was happening. All things colluded to make the biggest con trick of all. I love you, the young man said, and love in this world was a practical thing, haunted, especially, by images of former lives. They lay bathed in sweat and nothing was consequential. The f... show at Night Boys was particularly athletic. Everything was hollow. Not like him or me, they said of a friend, a singer, who made a legitimate income. Although all was seen as legitimate here. Everything came round and round. Haunted by the light, by the right, by the triumphalism of the left. They so believed they were in the right; and dismissed the normal populace, which they were supposed to represent, as having done nothing, of being blind and ignorant, fools long before they emerged from the bush, the scrub, the mud, before these neanderthals crawled onto land and he was trapped in a situation of his own making. Hell hath no fury. It was a tight way to exclaim, to die, to be confounded by what was meant to be love and was nothing but bought sex, time and again, here in the now. You are very kind, they said, and yes, he was generous to a fault. Everything mattered.

Come again, the man had said, all those years ago. Nothing mattered. He was cast adrift. Pale flesh drifted, and ancient concerns undulated off an ocean floor, deep with unease, blessed with timelessness, the unconcerned laughter of the young. All was conspiracy. Nothing was right. And they caught him laughing when he wasn't laughing, and manufactured hysteria when there was nothing to be concerned about. Suddenly the apartment seemed small. Everything was drifting away. Athletic wasn't the word for it, wouldn't want to be caught on the end of that donkey slonger. He went to the meetings and their content drifted over him. Everyone seemed to be in relapse zone; so he had a good fight with an older member, just for good measure, to throw any spanner, any excuse, into the works. Grinding machinery was all that was left. Then he discovered other weaknesses of the flesh. All was caught, fractured, time moving. He was bent asunder. Nothing was right. Those billows from the ocean floor may have been timeless, but in the here and now they impacted on his daily life, his hard fought equilibrium. Asia suits you, his brother in law said, you look ten years younger, as if all the weight has been lifted from you, as if you were a different person. I like it here, he said. And of course part of the like was the easy sex, the fact he did not have to sleep alone.

Whenever we are awakened, we hear the unconcerned cackle, we hear things we should never have heard, suspect things that were barely happening. I love you and he responded same same, wishing it to be. There was an all out frankness. Time was moving inexorably to its conclusion. I'm 82 and I'm happy, the man said, beaming at them all. I love music. He repeated the phrase several times, I love music. And I have two children. And I have grandchildren I have never seen. I'm happy. All was moving in concert; he was deeply concerned and deeply frightened, most of all for his life ending, for time being disconcerted, for a shrug of a shoulder, a drift of a pattern, a hem in a crowded street, a pretty face on a crowded train; all of it mattered. He wanted to be caught inside everybody's life, inside every piece of history past and present, to be at one not just with this universe but all universes. There wasn't any way out of this mortal frame; but it seemed hardly true that this was all there was. The ancient voices still sprang, swam, strong inside of him. He could hear them barking back across the centuries, to the times when he was a warrior, a guardian, a court official, a lonely drunkard in an English village; a once young man disgraced. It wasn't to be, whatever he had hoped to be, this time around. The voices would not be silenced. They would take him soon enough; twenty years, a lifetime, were as nothing to them. They would come for him; and he would never be ready. Too full of regret, too anchored in the present; he looked wistfully across the skyscrapers; and wished he could raise a glass in joy. Beware the heights, beware the fall, that is all.

THE BIGGER PICTURE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/07/AR2010080700822.html

KABUL -- Gunmen killed 10 members of a medical team, including six Americans, traveling in the rugged mountains of northern Afghanistan, demonstrating the reach of insurgents far from their traditional havens and shocking the expatriate community here.

The attack was one of the deadliest on civilian aid workers since the war began in 2001. That it occurred in Badakhshan province, a scenic mountain redoubt considered a peaceful refuge from the war, added to growing concern that the Taliban has seized on northern Afghanistan as its latest front.

The dead have not been officially identified, and the bodies not yet returned to Kabul, but Afghan and Western officials said the victims were thought to be members of a medical team working with a Christian charity group that has decades of experience in Afghanistan. That team, from the International Assistance Mission, lost contact with its office in Kabul on Wednesday, two days before the attack, said Dirk Frans, the group's executive director.

"We've got a team that has gone missing, and then there are 10 people found dead. At the moment we're working on the assumption that this is the same team," Frans said.

The Taliban quickly asserted responsibility for the killings, saying the medical workers were "foreign spies" and were spreading Christianity. But police officials have not ruled out robbery as a motive, as the victims was stripped of their belongings after they were shot.

The team members -- six Americans, one German, one Briton and four Afghans -- were returning from neighboring Nurestan province, where they had spent several days administering eye care to impoverished villagers. They were traveling unarmed and without security guards, Frans said.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2010/08/06/2010-08-06_house_where_michael_jackson_died_goes_up_for_sale_.html#ixzz0vyOeuBpR


At first glance, it doesn't sound much different from any other Los Angeles real estate listing.

Holmby Hills, 17,171 SF, 1.26 acres, 7 BR, 13 BA, 12 fireplaces, guesthouse, pool, theater, wine cellar, tasting room, art studio, elevator, gym, spa. $28.995M, possibly negotiable.

But this little pad does have one little extra thriller you could throw out to the guests you invite for a cocktail party in the tasting room: It's the house Michael Jackson was renting at the time of his death on June 25, 2009.

If the exterior looks familiar, it's probably because that's where thousands of fans gathered that night for impromptu memorial celebrations.

Jackson was paying $100,000 a month for the rental, where he stayed while he was rehearsing for what he planned as a series of comeback concerts.

The house was built in 2002 and sold in 2004 for $18.5 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. It was listed in 2008 for $38 million, but pulled back when the real estate market deflated, which is why it was available for Jackson to rent.

It is owned by Hubert and Roxanne Guez. He's chief executive of clothing manufacturer Ed Hardy.

Bangkok. Picture: Peter Newman.