Laughter House

© 2004 Roger Duncan
All rights reserved.

Inside the car. Outside of everything. Round goes the little-clear-plastic-coin-bag over half-full with tan powder. One by one they snort from the black cocktail-straw indelibly marked by panted red lips, taken from an empty glass in the Seven-T's club, every drop of melted ice sucked dry.

Heads bow and rise, blushed-red eyes, powdered-white complexions, it takes them two hands to crank down the windows on the old Falcon. And the air rests just beyond the open window, realising the life that's here is dead.

"Whoa, Tony! What is this shit?" Jeff asks.

(diet pills)

"Rock and roll, mmm, ... high as a kite, mmm," Wilson mumbles.

(migraine tablets)

"Scout's honour, 'moff ma face ... cheeks ... eyes ... mouth, y'know?" Luke.

(Buy-It-Now internet amphetamines at an 80% discount)

"I like gerrrls, soffft, smooooth, wet...." Francis drools.

(a little Didrex for that spicy edge, a pinch of Imitrex for that sumatriptan freshness, and a crunch of coffee for an extra buzz).

"You must trust me, that little concoction you've just snorted is gonna take you to another plane of consciousness. Believe me. I've been planning this since I could mime to records. I know what I'm doing. And it's not as if you've got long to live ... soon we'll all be much bigger than this life. I'm the one who's going to get you there; promote you. Have any of you ever been to the Laughter House?"

Jeff seems the only semi-coherent one, sitting in the passenger seat staring at his left hand very closely, flexing his fingers. Wilson and Luke are both propped like bookends against the back windows. And Francis is wedged between, the straw stuck up his nose, his head never came up, dribbling on his satin shirt that looks more like a designer pajama-top than authentic Chinese. The car park dances with fluorescent shadows as the stadium-style lights flicker like mosquito-zappers. A concrete waiting area bordered by a playground with trees, a sinister mystery lurking beyond the perimeter. Others are screwing, smoking, drinking, like reflections upon windscreens but really behind the glass. And I think, it's on the screen that your image gets noticed.

I turn the key, rev the Falcon's engine, and yell out the window "HISTORY WILL BE MADE AT THE LAUGHTER HOUSE TONIGHT! YOU'RE ALL FUCKING NOBODIES!"

And rev through the gears. The smell of burning rubber lingers in the smoke from the tires as my victims and I burn out of the suburban night.

Crystalised

Off a side road on the Bussell highway between the second petrol-stop-cafe and the tree with the car wreck high in its boughs is the track leading to the Laughter House. This is where we stop, the petrol-stop-cafe, and I whip out another bag of powder which the boys sniff away, Francis going first as he still has the straw up his nose. And when Jeff offers the tiny bit left to me I say, "I don't need to get high to get by," which causes Francis to start heaving with a whistle. We all stare at him for a moment and he says, "are there gerrrls at the Laughter Club, Tony?" And I smack my palm into his head, almost just to see if it will flop forward if I do it hard enough, and it actually locks backward for a while, and Francis just stares at the light switch on the roof until gravity levels his eyes with mine.

"Laughter House. House, not club. And yes, there's sure to be some hard-bodies hanging around. Let's get coffees."

There's a serve-yourself-machine. I get five black coffees, five handfuls of sugar sachets; the last supper to my disciples who are staring at the black-night window like a TV with nothing on. Hand-dive-fight for the sugar, ripping, spraying the crystals, pouring pack after pack into the Styrofoamed black oil, then dabbing fingers onto the table making the crystals stick.

And as the cup in front shakes slightly, a deep hum closes in, VOOOM, the window flashes a silver-streak going over 280k's, coffee spills over rims, crystals jump on the table, and all our heads flick to the left, momentary puppets of the speeding spectacle.

"Let that be a reminder, no one takes notice of you unless you exceed the speed limit. Let's go (softly). Let's go (tense)! Leave the coffee (serious). LEAVE IT!" With one swipe the coffee splashes over the table, dissolving the crystals. An old man comes from the gents, brandishing a mop, and I can tell the others find it hard to tell if there's two of him or not. I bundle them out of the bench seats, out the door and into the car.

"Do you think he saw us?"

"Why?" asks Wilson

"What is this Laughing House, Tony?" asks Jeff.

"Laugh-ter House. It's where you guys become a band for the first time, I brought you together for one reason. To make us all famous. The magic happens tonight, boys; you're gonna love what I've got planned, (then mimicking Groucho Marx, invisible cigar tapping included)—this place is gonna kill ya!" No one gets it except me.

Diving

The radio: (Beach Boys) if you should ever leave me -life would still go on believe me...

About half an hour from the petrol-stop-cafe I slow down, looking for the turning, and realise we've come too far. That's when Jeff notices through the spaces between his flexing fingers the red brake lights glowing behind a dust cloud churning out from revving wheels off the side of the road.

And that's when I notice the tree with the old Holden high in its boughs.

And that's when I hear cans rolling on the road. And that's when I see the silver flash that shook the petrol-stop-cafe cut in half, clinging to the tree-trunk, accelerating thrusts into it, rocking the Holden in the boughs.

Slowly, carefully, the Falcon creeps, carrying us through the thick tar-death air. Cans slowly spew beer as they roll, the silver-flash violently fucks the tree in uncontrolled spasms, and the old Holden rocks in the boughs, more off balance with every hump. Pulped wrecked bodies trail both sides of the road and the Falcon bumps us over bits.

Jeff wants to get out, have a closer look, becomes excited, the reality of death closer than ever before mixing with his high.

"Stop the car! Tony, they could still be alive!"

"We've gotta turn back. We missed our exit."

"We gotta do something!"

"Yeah? ... what are we gonna do, Jeff?"

Even though Jeff's going to be blabbing like a baby when he realises the cattle knocker is going to drive a steel bolt into his head, he actually wants to die, and I know he won't put up any real resistance, which is why he'll go first.

Jeff. Guitarist. Influences Dave Navaro, Slash, and William S Burroughs, his mum Irene, his stepdad Luther, the idea of being famous, and now me.

Father died from drunk driving when Jeff was seven. He never understood what that loss meant to him. Jeff is looking for a familiar face lying on the road.

Later. Jeff kneels behind a rusty, blood stained gate. Tony fires the hydraulic-nail-gun-knocker into his forehead, and cream brain oozes out with blood. He falls unconscious onto the metal rail, sits there, propped, a beam of moonlight spots him, sacrificial fluids pump out of the trepanned-hole.

The radio: the world could show nothing to me -so what good would living do me...

"Take it easy, guys, it's nothing to do with us; besides, we're still tripping, and the last place you wanna be tripping is around a fresh car crash."

Wilson starts dry retching out the left window and spews down the side of the Falcon. The car in the boughs makes a high-pitched whine with every tilt as if it's scared to fall.

"Am I right? Look at you guys. It's just dead meat. Right, Wil?"

Wilson brings his head back into the car and wipes acidic saliva from his mouth.

"Where are we going, Tony? I've never heard of the Laughter House."

"It's all set, Wil. All the equipment we need to make tonight the beginning of your journey to fame. This trip, in both senses, is your rite of passage. It binds you as a group."

Wilson. Drums. Influences, Dave Grohl, his art teacher at college, Noddy his wanker stepdad, Scotty his larrikin uncle, television, and now me.

Wilson showed me a home video of him, his younger brother and sister being manipulated into saying they love their parents. Ten years later his dad hooked up with an eighteen-year-old girl; they had two kids together within two years, and broke up within three.

Later. Wilson is shackled at the feet; he hangs upside down writhing semi-conscious. Tony stabs him in the back of the neck severing the brain stem.

I stop the car and we sit and wait. Wait for the car in the tree to nose-dive into the car wrapped around the tree.

The radio: God only knows what I'd be -without you.

"I've never seen anything like this before."

'Yeah. Just try to forget about it, Luke.'

'What a come-down."

"Is it?"

"I don't know, I'm still off ma face."

"That's good. The only way to be at the Laughter House. When you get there you'll soon forget about all this death; you'll be too busy thinking about the hook in your head."

"You mean riff."

"Do I? Look out here it comes. Timberrrrrrr."

Luke. Rhythm guitar. Influences, David Bowie, Robert Smith, Elvis Presley, marijuana, Christianity, and now me. In the last month Luke has lost his drivers license, his girlfriend, his job. He has the swagger of depressed youth.

Later. Luke is naked, hanging upside down. Alive. Tony can't hear the screams over the roar of the chainsaw as he removes the head with one swipe, then pulls the whirring teeth through Luke from crutch to neck.

The old Holden crashes through branches and stabs the grinding silver-flash, folding the roof in, balancing vertically, slotted erect, wavering with each silver-growl beneath, then falling limp to the verge, windows caving in.

"Show's over. Our turning's about 1k back."

Later. Francis is dead from a heart attack, age 23, after Tony injects air into his veins. Francis lies on a steel bench. Tony has cut Francis' hands off with a knife and thrown them in a bucket marked 'waste disposal.'

Meat

The Falcon vibrates on the old gravel path to the abandoned wreck surrounded by wild grass 3 feet high. Lit by the moon, the place seems horrendous, voluminous, a Viking long-boat, a barn for occult meetings, a factory funhouse of outside stairs, crooked chimneys, broken wooden slats to climb through, loose tiles that let the night light in. And the six-foot-high, three-dimensional capital-black letters fill the entire side of the warehouse shack.

The "S" fell from its first letter spot a long time ago. It still leans against the wooden house, only the top half visible above the weed-grass, changing this concentration camp for animals into the fun-for-all LAUGHTERHOUSE.

I remember coming here with Dad. I remember thinking, 'I didn't know Dad worked at a Laughterhouse, how come he isn't more fun?' Then we took the tour, up the long steps that run the height of the building, Dad's boss Mr. Chizzle with the strange accent, Dad, and then me. It felt like the wind would blow the rickety wooden steps from under us. It seemed the whole building was ready to collapse into a pile of planks sending up a big dust cloud. We went through the door at the top and came to a balcony that perimetered and bridged across the entire building.

The main corridor had rows and rows of cows. Skinned, hanging upside down, some still writhing, kicking, and two men in white clothes and white helmets, with large knives, were sticking the sharp blades into the cows' throats. Blood poured from them onto the muddy maroon-patched concrete floor. Another man stabbed some cows in the back of their necks which stopped them kicking, "he's had to cut her cortex, see?" Dad said. Then another man in white stripped the cow's face off.

Cows' legs were chopped off, then their skin stripped, then a large man with a chain saw cut them in half, straight down the center, ribs on either side. Heads already gone. They looked like the poster in the doctor's surgery, dark pink flesh and white sinewy strips geographically mapping the body.

I remember thinking 'they're just like people.' Dad and Mr. Chizzle were laughing and pointing at a man wrestling with a calf; he was stabbing the young cow in the eyes with a knife.

Sectioned off, where the calf had come from, was a man with a gun. A ray-gun, a gun with a silver saucer and a big steel nail in the center where a beam of red light should come from. He stood at a gate as cows filed through an aisle of metal railings to him. He placed the gun upon the cows' foreheads, his arm jolted back, and the cows collapsed, not always the first time; sometimes he had to pull the trigger five, seven times, sometimes he missed and got the cow in the eye or the nose and the cow would ram the gate or try to turn back but was blocked by the others, or try to escape by climbing through or over the metal rails. Either way another man would shackle its feet and the cow was hung upside-down, writhing and kicking, blood spurting from its eyes. There was a large poster on the wall near the gate where the man knocked the cows; it was a black-and-white image of a cow's face with an X on its forehead.

This was meat. Renamed, packaged, promoted and sold. This was a living being, killed, renamed and turned into something completely unliving, unsentient, unrecognisable as having ever had a life, a child, a future, a feeling, a thought. I remember thinking, 'this isn't anything like a Laughter House.'

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