For Robert E Grant.
He asked me could he stay on the couch. Not in those words. I messaged him something I should’ve messaged him days before. A list of books I had. Said I’d leave any one of them in the bar for him and he could keep it for as long as he pleased. The list went:
Thomas Mann — The Magic Mountain
Enrique Villa-Matas — Bartleby and co
Bram Stoker — Dracula
Louis Ferdinand Celine — Death on Credit
Louis Ferdinand Celine — Guignol’s Band
Milan Kundera — The Unbearable Lightness of Being
James Joyce — Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses
Charles Bukowski — Post Office
Ernest Hemingway — For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway — Islands in the Stream
Thomas Bernhard — Extinction
Morrissey — Autobiography
Gunter Grass — The Tin Drum
Stig Saeterbakken — Siamese
Samuel Beckett — Footfalls and Echos Bones
Thomas Mann — Death in Venice
Karl ove Knaussgaard — A Man in Love
Anthony Burgess — Clockwork Orange
Luigi Pirandello — Naked Masks
Malcolm Lowry — Under the Volcano
Jorge Luis Borges — Ficciones
There was a few books I left out. Just a handful. Books that had a sentimental value. Books I couldn’t risk being left on a bench. Or covered in coffee. Books that had notes in them. Miller’s On Writing. The Third Policeman. Why Miller’s On Writing? I don’t know. But The Third Policeman had been with me everywhere. It was my brother’s copy. Had a note on the first page from dad. The Third Policeman was with me in the hospital when I was fifteen. Nothing too serious. Cysts removed from my ears. Horrible things they were. Thought they’d never go. Never leave. They made me beastly looking. Absurd looking. Grotesque. They called me the elephant man. Men in scouse toilets would look over at me from the side. Splash of piss bouncing off the urinal onto their shoes. ‘Fucking hell lad, fuck’s wrong with your ear?’. ‘It’s a bite’, I’d say. Or something like that. Always made something up. Embarrassed by the disease. My ear always throbbing. The skin stretched. Agony. Swelled up and pushed out. Like it’d split and tear through the skin and seep out. All blood and mess. The infection was rotten. “The smell!” One doctor tried to force it out. He was a savage. It tore through my lobe. Like stabbing a tomato sauce bottle with a tiny hole and trying to squeeze the whole thing out. And The Third Policeman in my hand on the hospital bed. But yes, that’s what I sent to Bob. That was the list. I told him if he lets me know which one he wants I’ll carry it with me and leave it in the bar. But he didn’t respond for a while and when he did he said: “Hi I have no where to sleep tonight as of the moment. You don’t happen to have a couch for the night? Nice selection of books.”
I said I couldn’t help. It was true. I couldn’t. Not really. Christ I felt bad. I didn’t have my own place. I lived with my landlord and he didn’t like me that much anyway. I could never pay rent on time. And a few weeks back I gave two friends the couch and the next day he ripped my head off in the kitchen. Said I couldn’t be bringing people over and letting them sleep on the couch. He said the smell was horrific and made a gagging face. Like he was getting sick. Then he said it again: “The SMELL!” and pulled the same nauseous face. He held his nose. “The smell!” And gagged again. His mouth open. Mocking. I knew what he meant. Feet. Yeah, the two had been out for days. But Toto didn’t have to say that.
Bob was sixty something. He was an artist. He was from the states. East coast I think. New England. He’d been living rough most his life. Though he’d had spells of money and success in the past. Exhibitions here and there. His wife was dead. His son was studying computer science somewhere in Spain. He went to say goodbye to his father in Chicago ten years ago. And when he got back to O’Hare he was scared they wouldn’t let him on the plane. He told me outside the bar. Sun burning down over us. Sweat pouring out of my back into a black jumper. Told me he was looking down from the departure lounge window. Over a grey parking lot. All the trees bare. Like a Beckett landscape, I said. The snow, slush. And the woman at the desk asked why he was leaving the states. He said he spouted out some shit about being an artist and having an exhibition as most people didn’t know too much about art and exhibitions and just ate it up. “They always ate up that shit”, he said and laughed. She said she was going to speak to her supervisor. His heart sank. When she came back, she told him he could continue with his journey.
He had no teeth. He often spoke about having no teeth. He was tall. Six foot four or five. But always hunched over. He said he was shrinking. He wore battered trainers. Basketball shoes. His legs bone thin. I saw his ankles one day. Above his shoes. Skeletal. It terrified me. He wore the same coat every day. A battered brown leather trench coat. He didn’t drink alcohol. Hadn’t for years. He drank Coca Cola every time I saw him. I’d buy him a coke. Give him a few cigarettes. He was always grateful. Always saying thank you. Saying he got chills all over whenever you helped him out. People in the bar asked me why I gave him the time of day. Why I’d talk to him. I like the guy, I always said. He was a vagabond. Floating around. Sleeping rough. From place to place. Couch to couch. Hand to mouth. But he knew his stuff. The first time I met him we spoke about Burgess. Then it was Soutine and Modigliani. Schiele, Brendan Behan, BS Johnson. Joyce, Beckett. Whatever came up, we’d speak about it. He had a good heart. Most people do. But I couldn’t help him. And that killed me. I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking. The guy who slept in bed last night feels oh so bad because he decided not to help the homeless old guy. I should’ve done more…
They’d been making a documentary about Bob for years but every time I asked if there was any news he just sighed. Looked down at the floor. Down at his shoes. Like a kid in trouble. “I dunno man”, he’d say. “I need to chase up Irene.” But he’d been saying that for years. They had a trailer. The trailer shown Bob walking round Barcelona. Talking about himself. Talking about art. Talking about life. Bout how he’d become a curiosity in the city. Bout how he struggled to stay sane. About people’s kindness. His recent circumstances. And there he was. Sitting in cafés. And standing outside the bar with Tom.
He looked like a battered Karl Knausgaard. He was about the same height. Similar hair. Grey, long, falling over his forehead. Carried a notebook with him everywhere. Taking notes. On April 17 2021, he wrote: ‘Is it worth taking the risk? Art? You’re going to be an artist? Nice hobby but what about a real job? Another starving artist? Hahah! Like Van Gogh. He ended up chopping his ear off! Most artists end up with alcohol and drug problems. There is no security and you might end up on the street with no home’.
The day after he wrote: ‘Still alive’. The day after that: ‘Exhausted’.
A few days ago I was standing outside McCarthy’s Bar when he came over. Asking Ricard if he a euro. Ricard said he didn’t. Said he didn’t carry cash. I had a tenner in my pocket for some reason. I didn’t carry cash myself. Didn’t have money in any form most the time. I handed it over to Bob. Then asked him in for a coke. He said he got shivers down his spine. “You know, I never like asking for anything but… oh man I could cry”, he said. It was nice to help. At least.
Myself, Bob, and Ricard got talking about something. Whatever it was, I dunno. About the decline of America or something like that. But I wasn’t saying much. I wasn’t interested today. I just let the elders talk. Stating facts and anecdotes. I just sat there. Sinking into the wall. Staring at the art across the way. It was one of those fresco paintings. Of haunting drunks. Their faces blurred and deformed. Laughing like devils into their pints. I studied the faces. My hands shaking. I felt like I was dying too. Like I’d fallen out of the painting on the wall. Drinking my Aguila. The Eagle. A fascist looking beer. But it was cheap and wet my whistle. At some point I asked Bob if he ever read Jean Genet. He said isn’t that the guy who wrote The Immoralist but no, that was Gide. No I said, and told him that Genet was the son of a prostitute. His father was a pimp I think, I said, or a sailor or something. But that may have been wrong. He joined the French Foreign Legion but was kicked out for being gay, I said. In and out of jail his whole life. Bob laughed. “Is that right?”. But anyway, I said, he was in Raval in the 1920s and it was the exact fucking same as it is today, I said. He writes about it in The Thief’s Journal, I said. Just thieves and prostitutes and pimps, drug dealers, the lot. I know, I said, but I kinda like that too. You know, gives it some edge, I said. Ricard said something about how Raval had never changed and I said: Yeah.
Bob asked me what the book was called again, so I told him: The Thief’s Journal. I read it a while ago. And then Bob started talking about Placa Tripi. About the street that runs parallel to it. And how it’s like one of those paintings by Goya. With all evil lurching out of dark crevices. Reaching into your pockets. Rape and death and all that is dark and horrible and I laughed as Bob stood up. Hunched over. And did an impression of one of those figures. Those warped and terrifying figures. Standing in doorways. Waiting… His hand withered. Snatching out. I laughed.
And then I thought of Bob when I couldn’t help him. I thought of Bob at night. Under curfew. Nobody around but the night people. I thought of him in his sixties. On a park bench in Placa Tripi or Placa George Orwell. Or sitting on the cathedral steps in the cold. And how had it come to this? He was the real article. The real McCoy. People scowered at him. People said he was stupid. Bad with money. They laughed. They pointed their fingers. They told him no. But he was true to his cause. There was no falsity. He said he was a method actor. He said it was improv. His art. That nobody understood. That once upon a time he was treated with respect. That once upon a time he was going places. But now, all had fallen. And nobody wanted to know him any more. It was not pretence. “Do you believe me?” he asked me once. Close to tears. “Of course”, I said. “You’re the real fucking deal Bob. Fuck all the others. Fuck that! You understand. You’re the same as Modigliani and them. You’re the same. Nobody gave a fuck about them back then. And now, it’s you. You’re real Bob.” And he stood in silence for a moment and said: “I think so too.” And so now, I think about Bob. I think about Bob tonight. About Bob right now, as I write these words. I wonder where he is in this world. In this city. I wonder if he’s okay. I hope he’s okay. As evening scatters down over Barcelona on April 25th.
We were all in the bar. Friday afternoon. Three o’clock. Summer was coming. The Isley Brothers were playing. It was about twenty five outside. And then Bob shows up. ‘You mind if I take a stool’, he says. “Sure man”. And we get talking. About this and that and all these people who are staying at the hostel with him. About this Irish guy who’s had a rough life and his face is just one big scar but ‘oh man, he’s a character!’, Bob keeps saying. “He really is! For a guy like you, you’d love this place. So many crazy people! So many nut jobs… And the shit you hear man. I mean I’m old now but but… the sex stuff too”, he says. Smiling. Big grin on him. Nodding his head at me and laughing. “Yeah… yeah. You know, threesomes and stuff.” I laugh too. I knock my head back and laugh. I tell him everyone’s in a good mood today and he laughs and says that he noticed that, and then I say something about how I love seeing everybody else in a good mood, how it puts me in a good mood too, of how I love nothing more than sitting back and seeing people laughing, singing and dancing, no gossip or bullshit or drama, of how it makes me smile and he agrees. I’m looking around the bar. At Irish Danny, Tom, Hugh, Ann, Colin, Sim, Erin, Richard, Arthur, Ken. The whole lot. And I’m sitting beside Bob. Just the two of us talking about whatever the fuck comes to mind. And then this song comes on. Some song I’ve never heard before. And Bob says: “I don’t believe this! This is The Raspberries! I don’t… Man… I haven’t heard this song in years. God…” He’s brought back to life by the music. I’ve never seen him so alive. And he smiles and says: “God… This reminds me of my ex girlfriend. Peggy Lea. Irish girl. Redhead. God I can’t believe this… The Raspberries.” He smiles. “We went to see them. Up at Fairfield University. Me, Tony Cassidy, and all those other idiots I used to hang around with. We drove up. Yeah..” He laughs. “Wow.” And he starts humming along to the lyrics. Singing a line here and there. “Man…” I say that I can tell he’s picturing the memories and he says “Oh yeah, it’s memory heaven right now… Right now I’m back at the drive in with Peggy there by my side and…hmm.” He sighs. And hums along again… “They used to laugh at us. Because they were a pop band, but I didn’t care you know. They used to have all these great concerts. Up at Fairfield. This was. God. 1968, 69… Yeah. Christ. Me and Peggy.” And I smiled just watching him. Draped in memory.
The last time I saw him was a Tuesday. The bar was dead. Just myself and Ken. He came in. Sat down. Yawned. Sighed. Put his head into his hands. Lifted his head back up. His eyes were sunk. All hollowed out. He was deflated. He asked me for a cigarette, I handed one over. I bought him a coca cola and he said: “I can’t do it anymore.”
He said: “I keep getting these commissions… But I can’t do them because I ain't got nowhere to do them.” He started laughing. “I don’t know what went wrong, man… If only I could sell one painting. I’d be okay. Least for a while.” We sat in silence for a short forever.
A few seconds later he says he quits. “I quit”, he says. In a whisper.
I asked him if he was still at the hostel. He said he owed them for last night and that they wouldn’t let him have another night until he paid. “I don’t know where I’ll sleep tonight. Back to square one. I’m searching for a miracle.” I didn’t know what to say.
We didn’t talk much. I said it’s roasting outside. He nodded, slow. ‘Yeah, maybe that’s why I’m so tired’. He pointed to his jumper. Same jumper as always. ‘I gotta get a new coat’, he said. ‘It’s too damn hot all the time’. He finished his coke. “Thanks for the coke”, he said. “I better go”, he said.
I stopped him before he reached the door. I said: “Bob, you know I’d help you out if I could. I really would. But I’m skint. I really don’t have anything.” He just looked at me and smiled. He smiled his toothless smile and said “I know you would man, I know you would.” And then he left.
