The Fan Man Read online

  “Tree, man … this is Horse Badorties, man, turning on the tape recorder, to announce The Plan, man. It is this, I am remembering a certain tree, man, in Van Cortlandt Park where I grew up as a child. And that, man, THAT is where we are going, man, on a holy pilgrimage to Van Cortlandt Park, where as a little kid, I spaced myself out. Let’s go, man, IMMEDIATELY!”

  The thought of this forgotten childhood park is now acting upon my Horse Badorties mind. There are some five hundred other things I must do in the meantime–hustle fans, hustle chicks, hustle music–and all these things are imperative and not to be set aside for a moment. But think of it, man, in spite of all the things you have to do, the trees of Van Cortlandt Park, growing free and green and covered with soot. I must go there at once.

  First, however, I must go to Tompkins Square Park, where run-away fifteen-year-old chicks are undoubtedly congregating. First, however, I must fan myself, cool myself with my hand-held battery-driven fan before I drop of heat prostration carrying this motherfucking overcoat. Cool breezes, man, across my brow.

  The reason I haven’t gone into Chinese paper fans, man, is because I haven’t been to Chinatown lately, but I must go there TONIGHT. Put it on tape, man, so you don’t forget it. “We’re going to Chinatown for dinner, man. It’s in The Plan. Don’t let me forget it, will you?” The Plan is now formulated on my Horse Badorties tape recorder. Later on, when I have forgotten who I am, I can always turn on the tape recorder and find out that I am Horse Badorties, going to Chinatown. And now man, I must get out of this doorway and walk along the street.

  There is a Horse Badorties footstep, man, and there is another one. I am crossing the street successfully, man, but hold everything, STOP! I hear Puerto Rican music, man.

  Quickly digging out of the Horse Badorties survival satchel the Commander Schmuck Imperial Red Chinese Army hat, man, I am putting it on my head, and lowering the thick pile-stuffed earflaps over my ears, man, closing off the sound of Puerto Rican gourd players singing

  muy bonita

  mi corazon

  I can still hear faint strains of it, man, but I am walking away fast. The Commander Schmuck hat has saved my eardrums again, man, from an onslaught worse than Ukrainian folk-songs. My Commander Schmuck hat is a winter hat, and though it is summertime, I am wearing it into Tompkins Square Park, and now, man, NOW I see why.

  At last, man, I know why I brought this overcoat with me. In order not to draw attention to the unusual presence of the Commander Schmuck Imperial Winter Hat with anti-Puerto-Rican-music earflaps, man, which might attract the eye of a wandering policeman, I am putting on the winter overcoat, man, so that the cop, seeing me in winter hat and overcoat will notice only that my wardrobe is complete. And by the time he realizes something is amiss, man, I will have completely melted out of sight into a small puddle of sweat on the sidewalk. And now, man, I see chicks walking around in Tompkins Square Park.

  “Hey, baby, here’s a piece of sheet music for you. Hang onto it all day and bring it with you tonight to St. Nancy’s Church on the Bowery. Sing this music, baby, and be filled with thrill-vibrations.”

  “Oh, I can’t read music.”

  “This music is waiting for you, baby, just below the surface of your waking mind. By coming to St. Nancy’s Church tonight at eight o’clock you will be taking the rapid upward path to instant musicianship. After rehearsal, Maestro Badorties will give you a private lesson at his Fourth Street Music Academy, above the Puerto Rican grocery store where, with unlimited credit he and his staff have purchased party sandwiches and will be brewing select teas from brightly painted tins in the Academy kitchen. Look at this music all day, baby … I’ll see you tonight… .”

  “Can I bring a friend?”

  “The Academy opens its arms to all students under the age of sixteen, who are given special scholarships, including her own room. We are presently negotiating with the landlord for the entire top floor of the building. Sing it tonight, baby, and bring your friends.”

  I feel like I’m passing out, man. Too much exertion of the precious contents of my energies inside this fifty pound black overcoat. I’ve got to get some food, man, or I will pass out. Get out of this park, man, and go to a grocery store, QUICK, and get a bottle of piña-colada soft drink. As a four-star general in the Puerto Rican Liberation Forces, man, Commander Schmuck is entitled to one bottle a day.

  But first I had better stop in the drugstore, man, and buy an astrology book for this month, to find out what’s happening to me, man. Because something must be happening, man.

  “What’s happening, man.” Smack fifty cents down on drugstore counter and walk off with my Horse Badorties genuine Aries natal program starbook, for today, let’s see:

  A mixed or muddled order

  and chaos threatens

  Another wonderful average Horse Badorties day, man. I’m mixed, muddled, and don’t know where I’m going. I’d better rewind my tape recorder, man, and find out where I’m going. Because right now I’m standing on a street corner, going nowhere.

  Little wheels of tape recorder spinning around. Click on button, hear:

  “Chinatown for dinner, man. It’s in The Plan.”

  “Right, man, I dig.” Horse Badorties is completely oriented now. Chinatown. The only question is: Chinatown in San Francisco or New York City? I could catch a plane to Frisco and be there by morning. Here is a chick, man, another chick who wants to sing.

  “Hey, baby, dig this music … tonight … St. Nancy’s on the Bowery … .”

  The thing, man, that holds me together is my MISSION, man, for chicks and music. Without that, man, I am an empty bottle of piña-colada, which is what I must do immediately, man, enter my local Puerto Rican grocery store and empty a bottle of piña-colada.

  “May I halp you?” On a shelf over the head of the grocery lady, man, is a radio, and even through the Commander Schmuck earflaps, man, I hear the insufferable chicken-rhythms of Puerto Rican music. It’s too much, man. I’ll have to get out of here and skip the bottle of piña-colada.

  Chapter 4

  A Knight of the Hot Dog

  I am going downtown toward Chinatown, man. What a lovely day for a long walk twenty or thirty blocks down to Chinatown. I better take a subway, man.

  Going down the subway steps the oh no man dark subway steps down into the subway. Why, man, am I going down into the subway when I could be up in the fresh air? Here comes the Japanese No-play again, man: I’m moving in the slowest possible way, man, like a slow-motion dream, on the landing between the sidewalk above and the subway below, wondering, man, in my own hopelessly compulsive Horse Badorties way, what is the best thing to do with the day? I know of only one solution, man, and that is my fan.

  Digging into satchel and withdrawing fan. Turning on the little blades, man, and the warm air is blown against my face and I am alive again, man, in the humming breezes.

  Blue-haired old lady going down the steps. She needs a fan, man. Walk down beside her and cool her with gentle air currents.

  “What a lovely breeze.”

  “Yes, ma’m. Everyone needs a Horse Badorties fan. Take it with you on the subway and never be oppressed. Special buy-of-a-lifetime today, only $1.95. I wish I could sell you this one, but it’s my only sample. Pick one up sometime.”

  “I must do that. It’s so cool.”

  Going through the turnstile, man, clak-a-cruntcha through the turnstile, and into the dark tunnel. Lunatics everywhere. Happily I am fanning myself and wearing an overcoat so as not to be mistaken for a lunatic. I’m in the subway, man. What, man, am I doing in the subway? Here comes the train, I can feel the wind against my face, the great vacuum fan, pushing the air along ahead of it, rippling my beard. There is the subway driver, man, in his little control room, looking out the window. I salute him with my fan, man, and now I am getting in the subway car and am actually going to Chinatown when I should be going to Van Cortlandt Park to climb through the bushes. I was bor
n up there, man. And soon I will return there to walk in the grass and have dreams, man!

  Directly across from me, man, is the subway window. And since it is dark in the tunnel and lighted in the subway car, I can see my Horse Badorties head reflected with hair sticking out in ninety different directions. Weird-looking Horse Badorties. Horse Badorties making demon little ratty face, crawling eyeballs into corners, wrinkling nose up rodentlike, pulling gums back, sticking teeth out, making slow chewing movements. Freaking myself out, man, and several other people in the car.

  Fanning myself with plastic breezes, making weird faces, what else, man, is needed? Only one other thing, man, and that is a tremendously deep and resonant Horse Badorties Tibetan lama bass note which he is now going to make:

  ‘‘Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnn.”

  Mothers with their children look at me, man, and then explain to their kiddies that if you don’t learn to blow silent farts in church you will turn out like that awful man. But the kids know, man, they know it is better to freely release the energies.

  However, while other passengers are sweltering in the summer heat, Horse Badorties swelters twice as much because he is wearing an overcoat. Subway doors opening see sign says

  CANAL STREET

  I must get satchel closed this is my Horse Badorties stop.

  “HOLD THE DOORS, MAN!” Putting away fan, trying to stand up, trying to get moving in gigantic overcoat, moving toward doors, which are closing on my Horse Badorties beard, entrapping the hairs and forcing me to stand here, man, without moving lest I receive the exquisite pain, man, of tearing out my beard by the roots.

  I am going an extra stop, man, with my beard caught in the door, so I can approach Chinatown from ten or fifteen blocks below. To stimulate the appetite, man.

  Here is the next stop, man, my beard is released and I am going out of the car and up the steps, man, coming out among the many warehouses below Chinatown. Streets are empty. The workday is over. Horse Badorties is completely alone, man, and in that case, it is time to step into a doorway.

  Open satchel take out special Montgomery Ward mail-order glass-enclosed water-filled wire-screened rubber-hosed lung-preserving mother-fucking hookah. And out of my moisture-proof herbalist’s pouch I am removing a generous pinch of Mexican papaya leaf, man, to get my enzymes flowing, sprinkling the leaves into the bowl of the hookah. And then I dig out the World’s Fair award-winning best-design Japanese perpetual match–a small square metal container filled with lighter fluid, in which a slender steel-supported wick of flint and cotton is immersed. By simply pulling out this match of cotton-steel and striking it along the abrasive face of the container, I shall have fire with which to light my health-food pipe.

  Scratch …scratch

  It doesn’t seem to be working, man. The Japanese perpetual match is temporarily on the blink, man, and I am reverting back to old-style book-matches, and have ignition. I have lift-off, man, I am inhaling the smoke and rising, man, all four burners on in my brain. The big bird is afloat, man.

  Yes, man, there is nothing like health-food smoke from herbs grown by Mexican monks in their jungle monasteries. Good for bent mind, scaly elbows, and the purple dorkies.

  The big bird is floating toward Chinatown, man, to the mysterious land of tree ears and fried rice. Good wholesome macrobiotic vegetarian food. But first, man, I must buy a HOT DOG from this hot dog wagon on the street.

  But first, man, I must buy the hot dog seller’s gigantic umbrella.

  “How much you want for the umbrella, man?”

  “Umbrella not for sale. You want hot dog, mustard, sauerkraut?”

  “I want this umbrella, man, this enormous red white and blue umbrella with the hot dog pictured on the side of it, man, how much do you want for it?”

  “Not for sale.”

  “Ten bucks, man, cash.”

  “It don’t belong to me, it belongs the company.”

  “Dig, man, you tell the motherfucking company that the wind blew it down the street and a Puerto Rican kid grabbed it and ran off into a doorway and you couldn’t follow him or his gang would steal your little truck too. What’s a hot dog salesman supposed to do for the company, man, beat off attackers with a rubber hot dog? Come on, man, don’t be a sap.”

  Hippie wise guy takin hold of the umbrella, why not let him steal it. He gives me ten bucks, he steals it. Somebody stole the umbrella, just like he said. Right, he stole, yeah. “All right, gimme the ten.”

  “You’re a true corporate structure man, man. Help me roll this thing up.”

  Rolling up the red white and blue umbrella along the shaft.

  “OK, scram outa here.”

  “If it rains, man, if it rains.” I’m covered, man, all the way. Walking along, man, carrying an incredible umbrella, man, big as a fucking flag pole. It’s heavy, man. Practically breaking my arm to carry. I’m so happy, man, to have this umbrella with my insignia on it of crossed hot dogs on a bun.

  Many fifteen-year-old chicks in a rainstorm can fit under this umbrella with Horse Badorties. An auspicious purchase, man, I’d better check my horoscope.

  A journey will turn out more expensive than you bargained for.

  Right, man, I bought a fucking ten dollar umbrella, and am carrying it up through the backstreets into Chinatown, man, where all the stoned-out Chinamen are sitting on their doorsteps, man, tripping on ginseng root and salt-plums.

  “This is Horse Badorties, man, tape recording a message for the great time capsule to be buried in concrete and dug up tomorrow. I’m in Chinatown, man, and I am receiving brain flashes from previous lifetimes as a Chinaman, man. Used to play Chinese flute, man, a thousand years ago, under a doorstep. Yes, man, I used to be in the court of the Paper Dragon, and speaking of dragging, man, my right arm is scraping along the ground from all the satchel, fan, and heavy umbrella I’m carrying around. It is time, man, to go into this little Chinese store and buy more stuff, man, to make my trip even heavier.”

  Chinese toys, man. Little wooden people in a rowboat, a miniature tea-set, a toy drum, buy, buy, buy…

  Thank goodness I am out of that little store, man, having bought only fifteen precious valuable worthless objects. And dig, man, here comes a fifteen-year-old Chinese chick, man, with beautiful eyes and long black hair. Man, how I would love to bowl in her pagoda.

  “Here, baby, dig this music.” Hand special sheet music to almond-eyed smiling turned-on Chinese chick. “Sing it tonight, baby, at St. Nancy’s Church on the Bowery. As you see we have included the Chinese drum in our ensemble.” Take out toy drum, give to chick. “Here, baby, take this drum, carry it around, bang when you feel like it, and come to St. Nancy’s eight o’clock tonight, the address is on that sheet of music. I’d like to say more, but I must get some other plastic assorted instruments, wander around, fall down, have dinner, and get lost. Come to St. Nancy’s, baby, and we’ll roll the I Ching together. See you later, baby, later.”

  Here is a little tin sword, man, cheap enough, suitable for a four-star general in the Puerto Rican cavalry, riding a giant roach.

  It’s time to get out of Chinatown, man, as I’m in a fit of wild buying. But first I must purchase this pair of black chopsticks, might as well purchase three or four pairs. Walking along, man, drawn to the store-front Buddhist temple of Kwan-yin. Must go inside, man, and get my fortune.

  Old Chinese men inside, sitting on folding chairs, reading newspapers, talking, looking at nothing, spaced-out Chinamen, man.

  Walk past them to the bowl of fortunes in front of the statue of Kwan-yin, beautiful goddess of good luck. Drop a quarter in the fortune bowl and draw out a little roll of paper, wrapped up in a rubber band. Tiny magic fortune scroll. Unroll it, read:

  The umbrella of the Buddha opens out over you as a smile. Good fortune indeed.

  Right, man, the umbrella is checking out on all sides. Destiny, man, you can’t fight it. But in order to perform the h
eroic duty of a Knight of the Hot Dog and carry my enormous umbrella, I must have something to eat immediately, man.

  Out of the temple, man, and back into the noisy street, maybe buy a few soybean curds, man, healthful, nutritious square blobular gummy-textured disgusting bean curds, man, make anyone but a Chinaman pass out from eating them.

  Wait a second, man, here is a fantastic box of gray hundred-year-old eggs, man. Eat one and die instantly. “Let me have half a dozen, better make it a dozen, of these eggs, please, thank you.” No more room in my satchel, man, I’ll have to carry them in my overcoat.

  What else, man, shall I get to eat? A salty Chinese cookie and some black-bean soup, so salty, man, you are thirsty for a week after downing some.

  I’d better go up to Forty-second Street, man, and have fifteen steamed-rubber hamburgers.

  Chapter 5

  The Overcoat That Went to the Bronx

  Here is the perfect restaurant, called the Grand, man, a broken-down little cheap authentic Chinese eating place, man, where only Chinese cats eat. What a wonderful restaurant. Let’s go somewhere else, man, they don’t have a telephone.

  “You wan’ eat someting?”

  “Give me some fried rice, man.”

  Just a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, man, I can look back into the kitchen where the old Chinese cook is stirring the rice around. It’s hot back there, man, by the stove. “Hey, man, you need a fan. Feel the breezes, man. Straight from the Yellow River. Buy a fan, man, only one dollar and ninety-five cents, make you one with your ancestors.”

  Clazy Mellican boy.

  “Is this my rice here, man? I’ll take it out myself, save the waitress a tip.”

  What a beautiful dish of light fluffy rice, with tiny pieces of mushroom in it and soy sauce, man. This is the only way to eat, man, the Way of Heaven. Rice, man, a chick ate only rice over in New Jersey and she died, man, faded away. I don’t know, man, fuck this rice, I’d better go down the street to the bakeshop and buy instead a huge juicy big stuffed meatbun, man.