2
I’m at Prince’s watching a Bob Dylan special with my feet crossed on his stolen coffee table. By stolen, I mean one day Prince and I were walking to his place after work and saw the thing on the side of a driveway, abandoned and patiently waiting to be picked up by the garbage man, Joey, this obese, mean grinder with a perpetual dip in. Joey was your classic younger-year playground bully who grew up to be constantly annoyed and furious about the little things. We don’t appreciate Joey much because we still remember those elementary years when he scratched his belly button with uncut nails and pointed sausage fingers at our haircuts, laughing. Well, we couldn’t let Joey get his grimy paws on such a table, so we picked it up and hauled the thing three miles, all heavy as hell. Now it’s in Prince’s living room and we probably tell that story too much. We’re just so damn proud of our accomplishment.
Prince allegedly bought his couch off some junkie right outside Johnston for cheap. Though I’ve always known he made that story up, I never once bothered him about it. I haven’t seen a junkie outside Johnston in my entire life, but I dug the story enough to go along with it and even nod my head when he tells it to people for the first time. We do that for each other with all our best stories. Prince stares at his portable black home phone on the table, waiting for a call from his long-ago woman, who is far gone and probably off chasing a new love already. I try to help and say, “Put the phone away man and quit starin at it,” but he doesn’t appreciate the suggestion and says, “what’s it to ya?” God, I love that. What’s it to ya? He stole that line from me.
I shake my head a little.
“Not much,” and I consider going back to the television since the conversation ain’t captivating a soul, not anywhere, but I can’t help myself. “It just ain’t doing any good is all I’m sayin.” He ignores me. He’s depressed and wants to embrace it.
Thick pomade glistens on the top of his head so I say, “Hell of a lot of glue up top today, pal,” to which he responds, “Fuck off, Cash,” and now at last I’m back to Bob Dylan. I don’t know why I’m antagonizing him. Guess I just can’t stand the funk.
I love Bob Dylan, but I’ve never forgotten what Prince said to me once.
“He’s faking it.”
“What do you mean?”
“This whole schtick. It’s a scheme. He’s a salesman, can’t ya tell? He’s just another American hustler with beautiful words.”
“Nah you’ve got that all wrong. He’s a genius.”
“I heard he sold his soul.”
“Where the fuck did you hear that?”
“I heard it. I hear things.”
Now, almost every time I hear his music I think about that conversation and how some artists are so desperate to be great that they’d shake hands with the devil. Well, if Dylan had done that, I couldn’t tell, and I’ve always liked to think of myself as someone who could see through the lies.
I used to say to Ma, “Nothing gets passed me and don’t you forget it” and Ma, in her blue overalls, cutting an onion, would say, “Hope you’re as wise as you think you are.” I smile at the memory, but miss her badly.
“Ever think Dylan is just a bit of a con man?” I joke.
“Cash, I’ve been saying that for years.”
“I know you have, man, I know.”
We smoke and my mind wanders back to that girl from the other night. God, she really seemed like some sort of magnetic beacon of all things Midwestern. Rugged, patient, and kind. The sort of girl you want to hear from through letters when you miss her and she’s away. The kind you can’t help but admire as she speaks all the fine, elusive, and mysterious truths that have evaded you for a lifetime. I can’t believe I didn’t even talk to her. Before I gathered up the courage to cross the bar and say something, she had paid her small debt and left. I let the moment pass and that’s as bad as it gets, trust me. I’ve been around long enough to know that you can’t feel something like that and do nothing about it. I don’t think she even saw me and on top of it all, she isn’t from around here. She’s just passing through and trains keep moving. She’ll be back on the road, heading to whatever blessed land she came from, never knowing that I’ve missed her and messed it all up. She’ll haunt me forever and that’s that. She was wearing a Ninja Turtles shirt and drinking a Budweiser, for fuck’s sake.
“Hey Prince—” he doesn’t look up from the phone and goes, “What’s that?” And as I watch Dylan say something to Joan Baez about sex, cracked out of his mind on some kind of witchcraft upper, I go, “I can’t believe I didn’t fuckin say anything to her.” Prince grunts.
“Yeah man. Love is dead.”