* * *
It may not seem like it under the broiling blue sunlit sky of July, but Portland was made for noir. Most months out of the year average about 40 degrees and cloudy, with the occasional sprinkling or downpour. After writing a few reviews for Akashic Press's Noir series, I've known the score: seedy deeds in shadowy backdrops that are just in the backyards of others. However this time, they dumped their exquisite literary corpses in my backyard.
Where do I fit in? Me, I'm just an archivist, or at least I will be when I get back from Boston in a couple of years. Boston, the other side of the coin that is Portland, and not just because of that slice of history that ordained that the naming of the city was by pure chance: either after Portland, Maine or Boston. Massachusetts. I've never been to either, but from what I've heard, Portland, Maine is just about as chill as we are here in our latitude.
I was standing in the basement of The Blue Monk, Miles Davis playing on someone's iPod hooked to some speakers, the editor, Kevin Sampsell reading from Portland Noir's introduction. The drink in my hand is sweating more than I am, despite being fresh off the bicycle, backpack straps still damp, hair plastered in a permanent flip. I see a lot of dames all dolled up, red slinky dresses, an old 40's-style black floral print that looks like it's fresh out of Chinatown with a perfectly curled coiff to match.
If they're playing the old school noir angle, I guess I could consider myself the new school. Spaghetti strapped tank top, rolled-up jeans, no bra, tattooed and pierced, the sort of siren who'd sucker some poor schmuck into a drinking contest and leave him with the bill or just to wake up the next morning with his wallet and a few organs missing.
No, that's not my style at all. The wardrobe matches, but I wouldn't do something as urban-legendary as hunting alligators in the sewer. Surprising that there haven't been such reports in the Shanghai Tunnels, but there's enough lore to keep a tour guide busy, shilling the tourists. If anything, I'd rather be like Pynchon's V., ever-elusive, but always present during interesting times. Either that, or I'm thinking of Carmen Sandiego. I did once have in my possession a rather sweet red leather trenchcoat.
To applaud the readers and the blues singer they got in for the night, I violate an inveterate law of drinking: never set a drink on the pool table. I frown at the ring on the green felt. Even though others have their equally sweaty beers set on the table, the waitress addresses me specifically, saying "it would be great" if I kept my drink off the table.
I had finished that drink, some ridiculously sweet concoction modeled to be a grown up iced chai (pretty much an iced chai with "good" vodka), I ordered another house specialty, called the "purple rain." It reminded me of the purple drink you see in the Sunny Delight commercials, sweet, almost so much so that it hurts your teeth. Still, this was what I wanted. I wanted a night of expensive girly drinks, listening to the reading of one of my favorite fiction genres and a safe, but slightly tipsy bicycle ride home to evaporate the sweat from my neck and bare shoulders.
As sweet as the drinks were, they still packed a good wallop. Deceptive little minxes, they were, like a pretty porcelain doll with painted rosy cheeks, dressed in tulle and satin, but used to smuggle dope through an airport.
The stories seemed to be fiction mixed with a strange dose of reality, the authors stating "This is basically me, except I'm not actually dead" or "This is a story sort of about a friend of mine."
Today, I picked up a book from Powell's about various poisonous plants. I figure if I leave this on my nightstand and the guy sticks around the next morning, I've found myself a keeper.
* * *
1 comment:
I like
Post a Comment