JEROME AND JEROME’S NEW
AGE BREAK-OUT
(Ferretti: Fighting the plague of deceit and mediocrity)
(Przybylski: I’d rather be a loser than vacant.)
It’s raining. We take
the alley behind Ferretti’s loft. In the background is
the concrete and steel Detroit skyline. In the foreground is a
vegetable
garden. We approach the mound of earth where Ferretti’s black
cat is buried.
He wrapped the corpse in aluminum foil. He wired a tv antenna
to its head
that pokes through the earth. “A New Age alternative to pesticide?”
I ask.
“Like a flea collar for pumpkins?”
“The plague,” is all Ferretti says. “The plague.”
My nose starts to run. Snot
mixes with rain. I finally get the signature
taste of my life as a failed writer. It’s time to go inside.
A caravan of firetrucks barrels
down Michigan Avenue as we enter Ferretti’s
loft. He locks the iron door. We’re imprisoned in safety.
What artist can
tolerate that? I think of how important it is to break-out. Picasso
did it
with Cubism. Proust did it with stream-of-consciousness. I do
it with acne.
The plague, I think, the plague.
WIRED
Ferretti has run a wire from the dead cat to his loft. It’s
attached to a
truck battery on his kitchen table. Underneath the battery are
stacks of New
Age books. Deeprak Chopra. Chakti Gawain. Dan Millman. The books
are
covered with acid and smell like the chemical burn of a thousand
LSD trips.
“Please,” I say. “Light the insence.”
Ferretti doesn’t hear.
He’s wearing day-glo headset and scratching his
whiskers. “Someone’s jammed the signal,” he says.
“Castro? The CIA? I need
more voltage.”
Ferretti leaves the kitchen
table. I’m want to put on the headset. I want to
transfer my acne to the dead cat. But I’m afraid that prize
poisons would
leave with it. It’s my vanity as a writer to hate everything
modern.
Everything! I couldn’t stand to be spared the agony of integrating
myself
into a society that’s left me behind. I’m obviously
not afraid of being a
loser. I’m afraid of being vacant.
Ferretti drags a metal tool-box
across the floor. It’s a Sears Deluxe
Craftsman that’s worn and true. He opens the bottom drawer.
I expect to see
hammers and screw-drivers and wrenches and a crow-bar with glistenning
steel
teeth. But I don’t. Maybe Ferretti isn’t to blame. Maybe
it’s just the age
in which we live. Because the drawer contains a bust of Krishna
wrapped in an
oilrag. There’s a voodoo doll with crusty flakes of turtle
blood stuck in a
canvas tool belt with broken candles and an irredescent Blue Dolphin.
There’s
an Aztec warrior stuck in a neopryne glove. “I can’t
find it,” Ferretti
says.
“Find what?” I ask.
Ferretti dumps out the drawer.
Stuck to the back is a moldy potato. Ferretti
grabs it. He slices it down the middle with a pen-knife. “Loan
me twenty
bucks,” he says. “I need to make an offering.”
“I only have a five,” I say.
“Voltage,” he answers. “I need more voltage.”
Ferretti sticks my credit card
inside the potatoe. “Why don’t ya just call
1-800-PSYCHIC?” I say.