AND THAT'S WHEN THE GOING GOT WEIRD
copyright 2000 by Magnus Nome
I've been on the train for no more than ten minutes when I decide it's time to stimulate my emotional life with chemicals. No synthetic chemicals, heavens no, just our good old friend Mr. Cannabis, straight from the plant. I leave my seat, nod to my fellow passengers and lock myself in the john. There I promptly eat a piece of hash. The piece is relatively small, if I relate it to the lump I have brought for this journey. This lump being pretty big, the piece I ate might not be that small after all. A qualified guess: 0,5 gram. And good shit.
I walk back to my seat and start reading a book on Hunter S. Thompson. A middelage couple sit opposite me. In the seat behind them a financial journalist tells his colleague that he spent so much time with his mistress he didn't have time to buy a seat reservation for the train. He brags about his cheating with a loud voice. I have no reservation myself. Neither do I have a mistress.
Weak, oh-so-weak, my personality is. I can not under any circumstances resist temptations. The reading does not encourage moderation, and I am dextrous enough to get the little plastic bag out of the packet of Lucky Strikes, get the lump out of the bag and break off a piece, still with my hand buried in my coat pocket. I'm holding it between my index finger and thumb, simulate an itch on my lip and smuggle the little friend inside my mouth. Chewing. Delicious. The drug I am currently using is a tasty one. There are no other drugs this tasty. In fact, If THC did not affect your brain (in a great way, I must say) cannabis would probably be a common spice. "Pass the pepper, salt and weed, mum." I sometimes use it as a spice, and I consider the additional effect to be a welcome bonus to the exquisite taste
Just as the last bit of narcotics slides down my oesophagus, the man opposite me gets up from his seat. Possibly to urinate or smear his haemorrhoids. Half upright he lose his balance. When the frenetic waving with his arms to prevent himself from ending with his face in my groin ends (there is no doubt that was the place the trains turbulence-God had intended it to end up), his face had a position no more than ten centimetres from mine. He smiled apologetic, I smiled understanding. He is about to regain a normal position when he stops, moves his head slightly closer to my face and says, discreetly
-There is something between your teeth.
A gesture to try to help me from embarrassing myself, because that what was he had just done. He blinks his right eye at me as he leaves for the toilet.
-Thanks.
I say. But my eyes are fixed on his T-shirt Majorstua Police Precinct. There are enough drugs in my pocket to put me in jail for some time, and my breath probably smells like Amsterdam.
I somehow manage to stay perfectly cool. I suck the little chip of hash out from the space between my front teeth. Then I consume my third dose of drugs, and last one that day. And the first one hasn't really begun working yet. I needed something for my nerves. But I am OK, I am normal.
I am normal. I am perfectly normal, just as the next person on the train, in fact maybe even more normal. I might be the most normal person on this train.
No, I am not normal. I'm feeling less normal every second.
I remember how I less that 12 hours ago spent quite some time on a cold slab of rock outside the University Library in Bergen, and how I constantly heard my own voice mumbling on about "this devilish drug, this devilish drug". The experience was pretty uncomfortable until I realised the trick was to start enjoying the coldness, and loving the dizziness. Then I loitered the streets of Bergen. The word loiter itself fills me with delight.
Train. I'm on a train. Does it move? Has it stopped? Why do I hear the theme from Counterstrike? The cop. The goddamn cop-motherfucker is sitting there smiling. I hate the paedophile dickhead. Why look at me like that? I am a normal guy. I am a valuable piece of my community. I am a useful cogwheel in the machinery of Norway. I might have been, anyway, he doesn't know anything about me. I am normal. It is just that I am inside a bubble. I am an autiste. I am a goldfish. I am the audience of this dreadful movie.
Should I eat the evidence? No. Don't push your luck too far. I suddenly realise that I'm pinching my nose frenetically and that my legs are shivering, and with a great effort I manage to stop myself from performing these activities.
My mobile phone dies. No more power. I am all alone, now. Nobody will call and talk me out of this dreadful scenery.
The point where touching my own body becomes frighteningly pleasant is closing in on me. But I reckon this is not a good idea, and manage to control myself. OK, so I touch my chest a little bit, but I'm sure it doesn't look that conspicuous. I'm just your average guy on the train from Bergen to Oslo that enjoys stroking his chest. There are a lot of us out there.
Get a grip. Be normal. I'm sweating. Is the cop staring at my pupils? I equip my face with a pair of dark sunglasses to avoid my pupils being stared at. It would be undesirable if they were. Now I'm inside a bubble with darkened glass. Normal. Oh-so-normal. What does normal people do on the train? I observe a man eating. Eat. With a sudden movement I pick up my bag from the floor and find a mango and a grapefruit. But hey...is this my bag? Black DKNY? Is the mango and grapefruit someone else's mango and grapefruit, and not mine? The cops? Did his police-wife buy them in a supermarket in Bergen because "it's such fun eating exotic food once in a while?" Or did I buy them myself because I foresaw food-kick?
Eat them anyway. I haven't moved in two minutes, the mango in my hand, the bag on my lap. Then I feel the glasses starting slowly to slide down my nose. When the reach the point where I can see over the glasses I meet the policeman's stare. His eyes says
-Your glasses are sliding down, why don't you do something about it, why do you give me that weird stare instead?
As if I knew. Then it happend. My sunglasses fell of my nose. They hang from my left ear for a split second, then slid down my T-shirt, hit my left thigh and bounce some centimetres and then land, neatly folded, in the palm of my right hand, that happen to rest on right thigh. The cop sighs. What a great performance! In the eyes of everyone that saw the incident it was perfect body control. It was art. It was magic. As the glasses slid down my nose I did not move a millimetre, not to shove them back in the right position, nor to snatch them in the air as the fell. The reason was, obviously, not that I did not notice what was going on. The real reason what that I was paralysed. But it look as tough I stared my enemy, the system, the old and skinny cop straight in the eyes and let my glasses follow their own destined way, over my chest, over my stomach, from my thigh to my hand. All this in the fifth of a second. I grinned madly and began peeling the mango.
Then the drug really started to take hold. My plan, to break as few social norms as possible, now seemed a bit ambitious. It might be difficult to eat mango with your fingers on the train, but hell, concentrating about anything was god damn hard when everybody was babbling in that childish baby-language.
Should I write a book for children about a boy falling in love with a jellyfish? Beautiful. Beautiful. My legs are shaking again. I make them stop. I spend a few minutes thinking about sanitary napkin commercials. Shit, man! Look at your hands! They are shaking violently, and your fingers, glasses and jeans are full of mango juice! Boil the fucking jellyfish, prohibit menstruation and get that evil cop killed. Mango everywhere. I lick my fingers clean. I lick my glasses clean. Then I lick my jeans clean. I think people are observing me. I see three solutions:
1) Tell them I'm stoned, so that they won't think I'm retarded.
2) Tell them I'm retarded, so that they won't think I'm stoned.
3) Shut up and stop grinning.
Yes, my smile-muscles are cramping. I put my sunglasses back on, ignoring that they are smeared with sticky mango juice and spit, and think about sex for a while. Everything is fine with me.
Before I get too horny a women approachs me. The nice mentally visualised scene with Bob Dylan and Janet Jackson in it, naked, disappeared, never to return ever again. I wonder why she looks at me with that accusing stare. Maybe because I'm on drugs. Some people dislike that.
-What?
My voice is hoarse and hesitating. Unsecure smile, approximately 45 years old, anorak. Bitch. Seat-reservation. I am forced by this small piece of paper to leave my seat. No use putting up a fight. They are all around me, and they would love to jump me as soon as they get a chance. There are no free seats. I am standing up in the middle of the train. It's standing still at the highest railway station in northern Europe. Even if I know that I naturally will die momentarily if the train starts moving, I am perfectly calm. I am happy. I'm thinking about writing a book about a dwarf that gets to be a police officer. No! Two parallel stories, one with the midget-policeman, the other one about an ex-junkie that becomes a teacher. I love story for freaks. Beautiful. Beautiful. I hear my own voice address the financial journalist without a seat-reservation (but a mistress).
-Excuse me, I have reason to believe this seat is reserved for me...maybe there has been a mistake...could I have a look at your reservation?
I consider the possibility that I might be a genius. He known he has already lost, gives me a sour look, gets up and leaves the carriage mumbling. His colleague, who is now sitting next to me, leaves too, to get a snack somewhere, he claims. His replacement is a small Japanese woman with a Discman. Around 30 years old. Smells like a campfire. Vacation in the Norwegian mountains. Campfire and Discman. Book in French. I inhale. Campfire. Lovely smell, the essence of cosiness. And from a Japanese. Japan is so fucked up you just have to love them. I do. I lean closer to her and sniff. She looks at me and I jerk my head back with such strength I nearly smash it into the window. She sighs and decides to ignore me. Nobody ignores Magnus Nome like that. Not when I am on dope in a train in the mountains of Norway. Not when you are a tiny Japanese women that smells like a campfire, and I just escaped the claws of the police force, and swindled this seat from a guy that works in the same financial newspaper as the little sister of the rich asshole that is currently corrupting my favourite football club. She won't ignore me another second. Think.
-Brain surgery.
A starting line as good as any.
-Pardon?
-Brain surgery. How do you think they do it?
-I am sorry. I am getting off at Oslo S. It is here?
-No, this is Fauske. Oslo is the last stop. Three more hours. I am going of there too. I can show you the Castle and Parliament.
I smile so heartily my temples are getting hot. I understand it might be best to lay low for a while.
The man opposite me speaks English too. Into his mobile phone. His hotel screwed up reservation. In his own, somewhat rude, words he tells them exactly what he think of this. When he hangs up he looks at me, shakes his head and smiles, aware that listened to the conversation. I can't manage a bigger smile than the one I am already smiling, so I keep it and express my sympathy.
-Fucking bastard.
-Yeah.
I'm smiling. He's smiling. His smiles more and more, and it seems like observing me really amuses him. I send him good vibes, and my eyes tell him it's totally OK to have fun at my expense. I like making people happy. I've got him now. It's not polite to stare at people smiling like that. I keep smiling, he thinks we're friends. We're not, so I ask him, in a cold voice:
-What are you grinning for? Do you think I am funny?
-No. Nothing. Sorry.
Once again I realise I should shut up, and concentrate on finding out if the train moves or not. I give up.
The trains rhythmical thumping and all the wonderfully weird voices is a comfortable blanket of sounds with no meaning. Grunts and purrs of well-being. A harmony produced by the Norwegian State Railway, remixed by $20 worth of dope and recorded by myself.
A Japanese dwarf. Why all these Japanese people? Why are they so small? He speaks Japanese to the man opposite me, the man that smiled at me. He answers him in Japanese. Even though he spoke English in the phone. Everybody seems to speak either, Japanese, English or that silly animal language. Then the grinning asshole calls his wife, and suddenly he speaks Norwegian. I think she might be cheating on him. Maybe she screws the financial journalist. Maybe some Japanese pleasures her. But we all accept it; we're all nice guys on this train, tolerant, camels in a small carriage, humming on this catchy tune, dancing carefully around, so we won't break the eggs.
If I close my eyes I see colours, and they are decorative.
That's when the small Japanese chick starts to hit me. This can't be happening. She can't be hitting me. I open my eyes. My little Japanese friend is asleep, her arms and legs jerking, as if she was running to catch the underground in Tokyo to get to work. She doesn't want to let her boss down, he trusts her. There is no way to make her stop the violence that does not involve an element of confrontation, so I sit perfectly still and let her hit me. People are giving me understanding looks loaded with sympathy: "A train-sleep-cramper, oh yeah, those are annoying, I can see you've got a situation on your hands there, boy, good luck." And they blink at me. All of them. At once. Before they look away and keep babbling in the frenetic bullshit language again. I just can't get how that stupid baby language can be that fun for such a long time. Ignorant white-thrash, sickening stock brokers, smelly sociologists and neurotic teachers, all of you, putting your heads together, stumping in the mud, grunting and snorting.
I try to think about some ethic dilemma. I can't. I'm not able to think about much at all. Everything seems so transient and I think I might be moving to London in a couple of days. Holy Mary, sweet mother of Jesus, I'm moving to London, I'm escaping, hiding in London. Should I eat narcotic substances before entering the old Boeing 747? Maybe. Maybe not. No. The journey is shorter, the assignment important. What was my Bergen assignment? Was there an assignment in Bergen? What did I do there anyway? I remember a padded room with a safe in the middle, Gay Dad on vinyl and Bacardi on the rocks.
Hey, why is everybody drooling? Everybody except the little crazy Japanese bitch? I try to concentrate on something else. Glenfiddish. The mountains. Kruder und Dorfmeister. Postman Pat. I realise how pleasant it is to talk to cute girls, and look around to see if there are any on the carriage. Nopes. Just the same old scabby baboons. I scratch my head and armpit at the same time to show them what I think of them. I wish I had some mace. Mace and a couple of hundred Polish punks.
I get off the train. I use less than five minutes to realise that I'm at the Oslo Railway Station, that Oslo Railway Station is in Oslo, that I live in Oslo, and that there must be some way out of this building. I see 15 people I know. Luckily they don't seem to notice me. I'm standing in a queue at the 7-11. I'm standing in a queue at McDonalds. But I give up on them halfway through, both of them. People are looking at me. Swaying, with a psychotic grin on my face, sunglasses with pieces of mango on them. I'm on the run. In the end I manage to order a cheeseburger in a shabby place with no people. I'm alone. Me, the cheeseburger-making man, and his son.
That's when the three eastern European gangsters arrive. They want coffee and wienertoast. They look at me and nod. Speaks in Serbian. So they're Serbs. They're going to kill me. But I'm cool with that. Stabbed to death in the streets of Oslo. Half, undigested cheeseburger in my stomach. High level of THC in my blood. Mango on the sunglasses.
The suitcases make bumblebee music against the asphalt, the air is humid, the looks are indolent and I decide to write an essay on bass players. London is Calling, but what bothers me is the bubbles.
The local bus is like a womb that cares about me, and I even pay for the journey for once. A cheerful giver I am. I smile through Oslo East. There is only one Magnus Nome, and it happens to be me.
