A CONVERSATION WITH KURT COBAIN.

A CONVERSATION WITH KURT COBAIN.


By D. Jonas Laurence



My conversation with Kurt Cobain was very interesting for numerous reasons.
One, he was very eloquent.
Two, he spoke about things that interest me greatly.
Three, he had been dead for at least nine or ten years.
I was in Doncaster (of all places) for work. I sold piping for bathroom hand-basins. It was supposed to be rewarding work. That’s what I read on the prospectus. That’s what I signed up for. That is what I needed, but that was not what I got.
Although I am not saying that the job came without a sense of accomplishment.
A sense of fulfilment. Because it did. Sometimes.
I especially felt a sense of well being when I sold a length of piping to some old dear who desperately needed new pipes. It made my day a little lighter. A little breezier. A little sweeter. A little less hard to deal with.
This is what went down.
I happened upon a little pub. The White Elephant. I did not know which part of Doncaster I was in; only that it was an extremely run-down area – spotty youths milling around kicking broken bottles like the footballs that they could never afford, vans and cars propped up on logs and crates waiting for new tyres that would never come, old people smelling like shit wearing old raincoats and worn shoes even though it was summertime and the heat during the day was scalding (pavement marbling and warping in the harshness).
Anyway, I was finished for the day. Slammed doors echoing in my recent memory like reoccurring nightmares. The word “No.” caught in my head like a crappy pop song.
I was beat. Tired. Rundown. Ground under the foot of society like a piece of dog-turd. The collar of my shirt wet with sweat. I needed a pint. Desperately.
So I found The White Elephant. I had parked my van a couple of blocks away. Near the decrepit hotel in which I was booked for the night. I had stumbled down the baking tarmac, not knowing whether it was food or beverage I was seeking, until I had seen the sign:
The White Elephant.
And I took it as a sign. For I love elephants. They are so gray. And big. And strong. And never forget. And find their way to elephant graveyards to die…even though they have never been there before. They also have massive penises. And love but one partner in a lifetime. They are also the only other animal, other than humans of course, that cries actual tears. If a member of an elephant family dies then the other surviving members mourn and grieve…and cry. Unreal. Amazing. I love elephants.
So when I saw the sign I decided that it was beverage that I sought. Food could wait. A place like this was sure to have a fried chicken place, or a kebab shop, or a petrol station with microwaveable pasties.
So I went into The White Elephant.
I sat at the bar. I ordered a pint of lager. I was served the pint by a woman who had crazy red-brown hair and wore blue hippy glasses. She looked somehow familiar.
“Thanks.” I said.
I was glad to be in the cool interior of the pub.
The last rays of sun steamed through the dirty windows and illuminated the dust particles like diamonds floating on a magic breeze.
I took out a smoke (this was in the times when you were still allowed to smoke in pubs and bars). I searched in my pockets for a lighter. I couldn’t find my lighter! Agitation crept into my mind like a ghost into a locked room.
Damn! I had left my lighter in old Mrs. Winthrop’s’ living room. When we had smoked and drank tea and ate biscuits earlier…and she had not wanted new pipes.
The memory rankled me.
“Do you want a light?” A voice beside me asked.
“Here.” A small, skinny, pale, anaemic, hand popped into my periphery, holding a lighter.
Click. A small flame shot from it.
I put my cigarette in my mouth and lowered my head to the flame. I inhaled.
“Thanks.” I said as I exhaled a cloud of smoke that looked like a Hiroshima cloud in the sunrays. I turned to nod my thanks again.
And Kurt Cobain was sitting beside me.
He said:

“No problem. I hate it when you lose your lighter. It’s like losing a part of your soul.”

I nodded agreement. Dumbstruck.
Kurt was wearing jeans, Chuck Taylor’s (both fashionably worn), an op-shop shirt and a ragged gray cardigan. I couldn’t help but think that the cardigan was elephant gray.
I was sure that Kurt had not been sitting there when I had sat down.
He said:

“You okay buddy?” lighting a smoke himself, “you look like you seen a ghost.”

He said:

“Sometimes the mind is a battlefield. We fight fear and sadness daily.”

I took a big drink from my lager. I felt confused. It all seemed surreal and yet too real at the same time. I felt like the ping of a crystal glass. A strange cutting note in a surrounding noise of dogs barking and horns blasting. I felt like a lighthouse in a storm, light cutting through the darkness and danger. I thought maybe I was delirious. Or dreaming. I looked at Kurt Cobain. He was drinking a pint of bitter while smoking his cigarette.
He said:

“What exactly is reality?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, still reeling, “I mean does anyone know what reality is?”

He said:

“Someone dying of cancer probably knows reality better than you or me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.
The bar formed three sides of a square with the back wall, loaded with shelves of liquor bottles, forming the fourth side. We sat on the right side of the bar.
Across, opposite from where we sat, a skinny man with lanky hair and round spectacles sat drinking and staring into space. The pub continued further back behind him and I could see a small stage near the rear. Tables were scattered around the stage. The skinny man also looked somehow familiar.
I ordered another pint of lager from the barwoman in the blue hippy glasses. I tried to think from where I knew her.
Kurt Cobain had finished his bitter and I asked if he wanted another.
He said:

“Sometimes buying someone a beer is like giving them a well-needed hug.”

I took this as affirmative. I bought him a pint of bitter.
He said:

“Thanks man.”

“Cheers.” I said and we tapped glasses. We drank in silence for a few minutes. I tried to clear my head. I couldn’t.
At one of the tables near the stage two men were drinking beer and shots of vodka. One man was small with floppy hair, the other was larger with a black hair and beard. They were being quite loud but no one seemed to notice. Or care.
Kurt noticed me watching them.
He said:

“Some people are destined to make the same mistakes for eternity.”

I didn’t have a clue what he meant. So I nodded. And took a gulp of lager.
He said:

“Life is like a box of chocolates…no I think someone already said that,”

He paused and took another sip of bitter before looking at me with his crystal blue eyes; eyes that contained so much hurt and sadness that I felt that I would break down and start weeping.
He said:

“No, life is like a scab that you keep on picking. And you never know what is going to come out. Blood. Pus. Fluid. Nothing. You never know.”

And he nodded to himself as if he were happy with his observation and took another drink.
I took another drink as well.
And we sat there and drank together and I talked to Kurt Cobain. We drank more beer. We drank a shot of whiskey each, Glenmorangie, and we talked some more. About everything and anything. About life. About death. About the meaning of it all. And finally it all became clear to me.
And I looked around the pub and knew the wisdom of the stars that burn out in the sky.
And Janis Joplin continued to serve us beer forever. And John Lennon sat across from us staring at something forever. And Keith Moon and John Bonham drank more vodka and got louder and louder and crazier and crazier forever.
And finally Jimi Hendrix stepped onto the small stage at the back of the pub. And Jim Morrison came out of the toilet and joined him. And then they started playing.
And they played for what seemed like an eternity.



THE END.


Author’s Note: Certain ideas in this terribly pointless story are stolen from ideas created by my mate Gaz and his mate Johnny for their play titled “Jim And Jimi Are Alive And Well And Living In A Rundown Flat in Doncaster”. I am sure that their play is going to be a thousand times better than this is.