I looked down at the pretty patterns that streets don’t know they make. Me, I was flying economy, but the plane, churning sideways now, was guzzling gas at seven gallons a mile. Even the Fiasco is more economical than that. I was flying economy, but I too needed my fuel. With cigarette and lighter cocked, I awaited the release of no smoking. Twisting my neck, I monitored the funereal approach of the drinks trolley. I wolfed down my lunch, charming a second helping out of the all-smiles stewardess. I love airline food and further suspect that there’s money in it somewhere. I once tried to interest Terry Linex in the idea of opening an airfood restaurant. Obviously you’d need proper seats, trays, mayonnaise sachets, and so on. You could even have video films, semi-darkness, no-smoking sections, paper bags. Linex liked the way I was thinking, but he said that you’d never get the punters in and out quickly enough. The food would never be fast enough to make really fast money …
Using the costly head-pincers, I watched the in-flight movie. The movie was a wreck, of course. The movie was a flapping, squawking, gobbling turkey. I hope my movie is better than that: I certainly hope it makes more money. (An airline sale within three months of release? This has to be a tragedy for everyone involved.) You know, the thing I want more than anything else — you could call it my dream in life — is to make lots of money. I would cheerfully go into the alchemy business, if it existed and made lots of money … We travelled on through air and time. Still four hours to kill. Drinking and smoking, alas, do not claim one’s undivided attention. That’s the only fault I have to find with these activities. Some people, it seems to me, are never satisfied. Not content with her smart new chequebook, Selina now wants a Vantage card. Oh yeah, and a baby. A baby… I looked around the quarter-empty aircraft. Everyone appeared to be sleeping or reading. I suppose reading must come in quite handy at times like these. The tousled girl in front of me, she was reading a buxom magazine: its text was in French, I think, but even I could tell that the article she scanned was about fellatio technique — blowjob knowhow. The fur coat on the seat beside her was uncontrollably voluminous, like a distending liferaft. She wr,s flying to her man, or maybe she was flying away from him, to another one. The intent, bespectacled young lady to my left, in contrast, was reading a book called Rousseau’s Philosophy. This gave me a neat opening. I fetched another fistful of miniatures and spent the rest of the flight telling her about my philosophy. It was tough, but we got through the time somehow.
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‘I have travelled widely’, said Fielding Goodney, ‘in the world of pornography. Always endeavour, Slick, to keep a fix on the addiction industries: you can’t lose. The addicts can’t win. Dope, liquor, gambling, anything video — these have to be the deep-money veins. Nowadays the responsible businessman keeps a finger on the pulse of dependence. What next? All projections are targeting the low-energy, domestic stuff, the schlep factor. People just can’t hack going out any more. They’re all addicted to staying at home. Hence the shit-food bonanza. Swallow your chemicals, swallow them fast, and get back inside. Or take the junk back with you. Stay off the streets. Stay inside. With pornography …’
‘… Yes?’ I said.
I sipped my crimson drink. I lit another cigarette. We were in an Italian restaurant, well south of SoHo — Tribeca somewhere. Fielding said it was a mob joint and I believed him: brocade, matt light, as quiet as a church. I am a standard, no-frills Earthling, but Goodney, in his white suit, suntan and sliding blond hair, stood out like a pink elephant among the sin-sick funeral directors lurking and cruising against the blood-coloured walls. These guys, they seemed to walk without moving their legs. Just then, a middle-aged, blow-dried villain — the usual opera-star face, woozy with loot and mother-love — urged a neon redhead past our table, our good table, to which Fielding had been instantly and officiously steered.