Roberto Bolano's "The Savage Detectives" discussion

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http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...

Don Juan le Graye, Kenny's Grindhouse, Logan Road, Stones Corner, July, 2012. Few of Kris' friends from primary school could ever have guessed how politically active she would later become. Though, in retrospect, the manner in which she became active did not surprise them. A top student, she was shy, but fiercely loyal and supportive of her friends. She loved poetry and song lyrics, though her singing voice was best appreciated in a choir rather than a solo format. Her first book of poetry, "A Catalogue of Grievances", revealed the triumvirate of her preoccupations, the culture of complaint, words and books, and, last but not least, cats. Old friends would have suspected that the first poem, "Feline Groovy", was an uncharacteristic spelling or typographical error, but in fact it constituted a wry dedication to two of the companions that share her apartment and give her so much pleasure, along with books and music. These same two cats also featured in her first political protest at University. In her undergraduate years, she loved books and companionship more than she loved silence, and her practice of sitting in a sunlit bay-window in the Library reading Kate Millett, while patting her softly purring cats and swigging something from a hip flask secreted in her back-pack, quickly brought her into conflict with the "library fascists" and "bibliotechnocrats" who would endeavour to suspend her borrowing rights, until they backed down in the face of a sit in, about which one staff member commented, "Normally, we'd be delighted to get that number of students into the Library over the course of a whole year." Kris had become a motivator of people and an instigator of action. She would never look back. Who would guess that her ability to ignite a movement derived from her flagrant breach of library rules?

Kris Readerman, Main Waiting Area, 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, PA, July, 2012
When I remember Mary in those days, I always think about her traveling - backpack filled with her favorite books (with In the Lake of the Woods in a place of honor in the front pocket), notebook in her hand, no maps (she always got lost in new towns, but she said that was part of the purpose of traveling - to end up somewhere that only existed at that moment). When I first met her, she was people-watching in LAX, furiously writing in her notebook as she observed a family of 6 arguing over who would get the window seats in the plane. These were the days when it was possible to go right to the passenger waiting area in the gates, even if you didn’t have a ticket yourself. When the passengers had boarded, Mary and I were the only people left in the seating area, so we struck up a conversation over chocolate bars and red wine. I remember asking her what she was writing, and she smiled and said, “I’ll know when I finish it.” That was the beginning of her second book of poems, Limbo, in which she explored questions of belonging, home, identity, and especially the personal meanings of journeys with no destination. Mary attracted a whole group of us around her - we all believed in literature and poetry more than we believed in anything else, and we were hoping Mary might lead us to a place where those literary dreams would become reality. Limbo inspired all of us to travel - setting off on long road trips in the desert, listening to music, letting Mary do most of the driving at night because she never could sleep well. I think she liked having a chance to be alone with her thoughts, stars overhead, following the black tarmac, winding through the sand, to a destination that existed only in her dreams.

Jay Rubin, Chiba Prefecture, Reserved Library Room 5B, Chiba University, July 2012
When Goodreads had alerted me with a notification, I had been in the kitchen, breading my last slice of tofu. I had put about an inch of olive oil in the sauté pan and adjusted the burner to the part of the knob labeled 6—medium heat. As I prepared the food, I whistled along to the opening lines of “I am Trying to Break Your Heart”, the opening track to the 2001 alt-country, indie opus Yankee Hotel Foxtrot which must be the perfect music for making a late afternoon vegetarian meal. After frying the tofu that had been dusted with flour, washed in egg-wash and covered in breadcrumbs, I prepared a place setting at the kitchen table: bamboo mat, white napkin, chopsticks and a mug of green tea; and with the fried tofu, a bed of white rice—the rice I’d haggled off an old man at the Chiba market. I put one of the two chopsticks between my thumb and pointer finger and the other between the middle and ring. I clacked the two sticks together in the air. Upon the sound, my cat Eiji leaped into my lap. And as I ate my fried tofu and rice with a light splash of soy sauce, Eiji opened up Goodreads with his paw and clicked on the red number one which was perched atop the circular G icon on the top right corner of the screen. Eiji purred contently in my lap and I had known why. Don Juan le Graye had commented upon my recent review of that Chilean-Mexican sprawler, The Savage Detectives. Don had responded to my explorations of post-colonialism in the literature of vagabonds via a cutesy Haiku which read:

One Juan Madero
Timber of Mexico land
Timbre of the streets

Eiji typed into the computer “Quite clever Don”. I scratched under his neck and he purred. I leaned over Eiji’s paws and added a smiley-faced emoticon to assure Don of my approval “:)”. It made me think of the time I first met Don. It was on a sabbatical in Brisbane some ten years previous. I had been working on the latest collection of stories in a cheap motel in Kōfu-shi for over a month. Knopf had been emailing and calling me every day demanding a draft so I had shut off all connections with the outside world. The only way I could work was subjecting myself to long bouts of solitude, translating the Japanese which was no easy task. After the Quake it was and the story “Thailand” was of particular trouble. There seemed to be no way to convey the way that Murakami’s Japanese imitated English, adding “land” to Thai-lando. Some things could never really translate. So my trip to Queensland was overdue and needed. I found myself in a quaint suburb, south of Brisbane in the Greenslopes motor inn. There was little to do but take bus rides to the city, see the sights and maybe visit a few bars. The people were pleasant and friendly. I had always found myself amused by australian accents and attempted a few of my own. One in particular, from Derby corrected my Americanized Derby with Darby as it should be said. But he was long-winded and tedious and didn’t stop talking about some fellow, maybe a friend of his, Frederick Wecker and how he was important around Greenslopes throwing in a word I was quite unfamiliar with “yobbo”. I scribbled it into my journal for future reference. The only other tidbit I retained from his jumbled, tangential yarn, was Stones Corner. It was a area of particular pride for Greeslopers and I soon discovered why. When I came upon it, I smiled. It was what one would expect from a small town in the suburbs of Australia: modest, quiet, backgrounded by all that greenery, the occasional Eucalyptus tree and the humid, comfortable smell wafting in from the pacific. I checked into the first building that caught my eye: Kenny’s Grindhouse. When I walked into the place, the smell of coffee grounds rushed through my nose, my body preemptively feeling the rush of caffeine that was to come. It had to have been the most unique coffee shop I had ever seen, a tiny cut out of a larger building—literal hole in the wall—with draped hessian coffee sacks adorning the ceiling and walls. I sat down with a iced coffee, imported beans from Costa Rica, the freshest batch of the day. I drank its sweet bitter taste. It wasn’t long before I noticed him. There was a man, leafing through a copy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I always took pleasure in seeing my work abroad. The man was taking lengthy notes up the margins pausing every few seconds to sip his drink and then plunge back into its pages. He was a man I wasn’t quite able to describe, but he carried a distinct look of control and importance in his affect, like he ought to be a king or a leader in a far off civilization. He caught me staring at the book. We exchanged a few double takes until he approached, presenting the book with his right hand “Coincidence eh mate?” I agreed and immediately upon sitting, we launched into a conversation about the wonders of Murakami and his words. Talk came quite easy, as we exchanged ideas and stories about our lives. Crossing a wide variety of common interests, of particular interest were our collective obsession with cabbages and vegetarian cuisine. His voice was suave, a thick low-register of australian-tinged speech, and his words were tightly controlled. He spoke no more than a sentence at a time, imparting each with a single pithy idea. It was a unique combination of charm that explained why he was chased by so many women around the world as a younger man. He had lived a life, surviving off his most recent paycheck, getting a job from town to town, moving around, never content to stay in one place. If he wasn’t driven away by his continual need to move, it was due to the many hearts he had broken, listing without the slightest bit of embarrassment all the women that had ran after him with bits of kitchen appliances, screaming their voices hoarse over his promises and acts of indiscretion. He called himself something of a hopeless romantic that drove him from woman to woman. That was, of course, until he met the one that really mattered. Her name was FM Talapia. She hailed from far-off Chile, whom Don had met, foraging through the thick jungles of that south-american wilderness. She had found Don passed out from exhaustion at a river, only five minute from her town. Even though he was large and muscular, she managed to drag his unconscious body back to her wooden, self-made house. She brought him back to life, over a few uncertain weeks, pressing a cloth soaked in lemon juice to his lips. It took nearly a month for his body to return from that delirium of fever and exhaustion. When he finally came to, she was standing over his awakening body, an angel framed by the open window, the Chilean sunlight pouring into the room around her, her faint voice whispering into his ear todo estará bien. todo estará bien. Don’s talk of language and Chile brought us inevitably to the topic of Bolaño. Generally unknown then to the wider world, both of us were aware of his astonishing writing abilities. He was the next great Chilean writer after Isabel Allende. He could only describe to me his work that he was intimately familiar with in his native tongue. I did not know nearly enough spanish to make my way through his work. Publishing houses had been shopping around for translators for his debut masterpiece The Savage Detectives. As our talk propelled us into the night our ties eventually had to be cut. Before parting ways, we promised to each other that we would stay in contact, and read that book together some far-off day when it would finally be translated. I thought of that entire night when I saw Don’s comment on my review. I smiled again and typed a response. Eiji purred.

Don Juan le Graye, Story Bridge Hotel, Main Street, Kangaroo Point, July, 2012. La Nique and I lived together for only a few months before my words hurt her so much, she moved out. Her revenge took a different form. We had bought a clay pot, decorated with bright colours and engraved with Aztec script. She lifted it up, her eyes giving me a chance to apologise, to reconcile, to seize on some hope for the future, but when I refused to give in, to do the right thing, she dashed it on the pavement, extinguishing all that was left of an entire civilisation and our relationship with it. I'm more careful with my words and pots now.

Don Juan le Graye, Dudley Street Espresso, Ipswich Road, Annerley, July, 2012. I first met Viajero when she was in her late 20's, almost thirty. I had just broken up with my ex-future wife, and I wasn't really looking for another serious relationship. Yet. Initially, I wasn't looking for any sort of relationship, but eventually (or uneventually) I gravitated towards relationships, only not serious ones. Just when you start to get comfortable with this type of lifestyle, someone comes along and rocks the boat. And that someone was Viajero. Not that she did the rocking. She swam past in the open sea, ignoring me, which was exactly what made me stand up in the boat and want to dive in after her. I was the one rocking the boat, and it was I who became unbalanced. She was fiercely independent. It was rumoured that she hadn't slept with a man (well, not a wink) since she was trapped in a toilet in a University building for ten days when it was occupied by the army. She was just about to go home and she was lucky that she had some food in her bag, a cabbage with which she was going to make coleslaw to accompany her own fried chicken recipe that night (she hadn't become a vegetarian yet). Not knowing how long she would be trapped in the toilet, she rationed the cabbage, cutting it in ever finer slices as the days went by. It was as if, for every slice, two more replaced it, she had stumbled across the product of a perpetual cabbage plant. She still had that same cabbage when I met her, five years later. She resisted my advances, my pleas, my verse, as she did all her other suitors. Eventually, there was a group of ten or so forlorn leftist poets like me who followed her around. If we didn't see her for a day or so, we would go wandering the streets, inspecting every nook and cranny, looking for her. That's how we came to be known as "the Cabbage Detectives", and she "the Mother of All Cabbage Detectives". People laughed at the expression, but still they respected her. They had to. She was the one with the kitchen knife.

Kris Readerman, Acela Car # 3421, Amtrak Crescent en route to New Orleans, July, 2012
I remember very well the first time I met Viajero, Don Juan le Graye, and Jay Rubin. Mary and I had just arrived in town, our convertible top down, trying to get adjusted to all the people and buildings almost on top of us compared to the isolation of the desert. We suddenly noticed a striking woman (she would have been striking even without the large kitchen knife she was brandishing), followed by a group of 8-10 teenagers and young men. Don Juan le Graye stood out because he was carrying a large bowl of coleslaw, while Jay Rubin was walking a gray cat on a leash. Mary parked the car, and we surreptitiously followed the line, which wasn’t difficult, since the men only had eyes for Viajero, while she appeared to be following a beacon known only to herself. She turned into a coffee shop, The Brown Shirt Cafe. The shop was known as a performance space and hangout for a group of fascist poets, the Tomatoistas, who took their inspiration from the common practice of staking down tomato plants, supposedly to stop them from falling over under their own weight, but really to contain them, to trap them into providing those in command of the garden with ingredients for tomato sauce and BLTs, without any consideration for the paths which the tomato plants themselves wished to follow. At the time, one young poet was at the mic, and a large group of similarly-dressed poets were in the audience, chanting along. Viajero drew herself up, shouted, “Freedom for all vegetables!”, and Don Juan le Graye started to pelt the poet and his audience with large spoonfuls of coleslaw, to the accompanying caterwauling of Jay Rubin’s cat. As the poet and his audience turned red in the face, rose up as one, and ran toward Viajero and the Cabbage Detectives while wielding large bottles of catsup, Viajero and the Cabbage Detectives made for the door. Mary and I looked at each other, instantly deciding whose side we were on, and threw partially melted chocolate bars in the path of the Tomatoistas, which slowed their advance enough for all of us to make our escape. Mary and I suddenly found ourselves in a group of fellow travellers, fighting for freedom, poetry, and love.

Mary R, Dreary Office Cubicle, Palm Tree Hell Inc., Los Angeles, CA, July 2012

I never thought I’d see Kris again after our final parting at the cafe. She had made it clear that she was leaving behind all she knew that night and embarking on the unknown with no clear plan in sight. In those days she was preoccupied with the movement, it dictated her every decision, from where to sleep at night to what she had for breakfast – often merely thick black coffee and cigarettes, the ‘nourishment of the poet’ as she called it. I used to attend her lectures of gender studies and sexuality at the University of Pennsylvania, although she never knew I did. At least I don’t think she knew. I would sit in the back and watch her stroll across the stage, confident, passionate, her students enthralled. Later that day, the last day, we met for coffee and as I waited there I watched her crossing the busy street struggling under the weight of several books. I never knew anyone who read as many books as Kris. She would go through a dozen a week and when I’d comment on it she’d look at me as if I was crazy, like I’d just complimented her on breathing. That was Kris. Books were breathing. On that day she collapsed into the chair at the café and produced a crumpled piece of paper and slid it across the table. “It’s time” she muttered as she lit up a cigarette. No one at the University knew Kris was a poet, none of them knew she was leaving to lead the movement. She had asked me before to go with her and I sensed then that she was asking me again. I had scoffed, told her I couldn’t, bid her farewell and good luck and I left her there in that café, cigarette ashes falling onto her notebook as she scribbled furiously barely noticing my departure. I arrived at Don Juan’s hotel room shortly after and we polished off the last of his wine. He was sitting on the floor reading "A Catalogue of Grievances" aloud and perhaps it was something in those words, or the dusk starting to settle over the buildings of the boulevard outside, but something in me began to stir. It was hours later, maybe five or six hours, after the last of the wine had lulled Don Juan into sleep with "A Catalogue of Grievances" splashed across his face like a tent that I found myself wandering towards Kris’ neighborhood. I knocked on her door and when she answered she smirked and let me in without a word. It wasn’t until I woke up sometime before dawn that she told me we were heading to New Orleans. I said nothing. I gathered up my books, my meager belongings and a small carafe of wine I’d taken from Don Juan and followed her silently into the deserted street.

Viajero Haldez, Perdido Street 2666, Bas Lag, July, 2012

It was in the supermarket in Kangaroo Point, which i was visiting because my sister had taken a year contract as a marsupial surgeon in that area, that i had first met Don Juan le Graye. I was looking for toilet cleaning fluid, but i got lost in the cleaning materials isle. There seemed to be cleaning fluids for almost everything you can think of: basin cleaner, floor cleaner, tile cleaner, shower cleaner, wall cleaner, linoleum cleaner, washtub cleaner, wood floor polish, furniture polish, dishwashing liquid, fabric stain remover, window cleaner, beerstain remover, dust guard, air cleaner, air freshener, carpet cleaner, tobacco odour remover, chrome shiner, and finally, on the very last shelf, toilet bowl cleaner. All these came in a bewildering array of aromas: Lavender, Pine, Fresh Spring, Ocean Breeze, Blue Skies, Orange Blossom, Summer Petals , Lotus Bud, Potpourri, Fresh Fields, Vanilla Vooma, Tangy Tingle, Peppy Mint, Rosy Glow, Green Moss, Lucky Lemon, Luscious Lime, Strawberry Sunday, Banana Blitz, Oriental Spice, Cinnamon Carter, Daisy De Melker, Black Velvet, Fanciful Frangipani, .. and more. As i took a step back to better survey the perplexing range of possibilities out of which i had to make a decision, i accidentally bumped into a large gentleman who immediately reminded me (for some reason i never could fathom) of some ancient Egyptian pharaoh. It was not so much that he was dark and mysterious, as that he carried with him a distinguished air of sagacity, an impression that he immediately ruined by grabbing hold of me firmly, as if trying to prevent me from falling. He seemed to instantly realize his mistake, since he quickly dropped his arms and resumed an air of inscrutability. "May I recommend the Cool Cucumber?" he said while removing the bottle from the shelf with a flourish. Taken aback by his decisiveness, my guard dropped and i allowed myself to be drawn into conversation with him. I was immediately impressed by his scholarly grasp of a wide variety of subjects, which he could discourse on endlessly and without pause. There i discovered that he was also a fighter for the freedom of vegetables, since he made a remark as we passed the frozen vegetables section next, about how shocking it was to freeze peas and beans while they were still alive. I knew immediately that i could learn from this man, that he could be a valuable partner-in-arms as well. This happened about six months before i met Kris, Mary and Jay and the Cabbage Detectives were formed.

Don Juan le Graye, Anesis Cafe, Hyde Road, Yeronga, July, 2012 I take pride in the fact that I can hide out in a hotel room or a friend's home for months at a time, and none of my friends, enemies or creditors can find me. It gives me the privacy I need to think, write or procrastinate. Imagine my surprise when, one morning, well it was almost the afternoon, I had just woken up, opened my first screw cap bottle of red wine and poured myself a glass, when there's an almighty ruckus in the carpark. I tentatively pulled the front curtain aside, not ready for the blaze of sunlight I knew would be there. A convertible with the top down had just screamed across two lanes of traffic, barely averting a trail of destruction in the street next to the motel. There were two women sitting in the front seat, bare-armed, but wearing scarves. And laughing. I thought I recognised them, then I looked closer to make sure. "Oh, fuck, it's 'Thelma and Louise'." I only had a few minutes before they went to reception, enquired about my whereabouts and discovered my room number. The manager wouldn't know me as Don Juan le Graye, but if they said I looked like a Latin version of Brad Pitt, they'd be knocking on the door of room 405 in no time. I looked around my room. I didn't bother to tidy up, tidiness is the sign of a perverse mind. I put my stick book in the cupboard and turned the TV onto a news channel. Then I searched for a carafe in the kitchen and slowly decanted my red wine into it, before discarding the bottle. If I was lucky, they would think it was some cheap plonk and be too disgusted to try it. Then I reached into my bag and plucked out a copy of Kris' collection of poetry. I retreated to the comfort of the floor next to the couch Rosie and I had broken last night and started reading. Although it was only minutes, I almost fell asleep, still post-coitally exhausted, before the door burst in and I was surrounded by two former lovers who I had hoped would never meet each other, let alone find me and learn just how contemporaneous our relationships had been. How the fuck had that happened? Well, I was about to find out. "Vino, girls?" I waved the carafe in front of their eyes. Then I tried to work out which one to hug first. Kris or Mary, Mary or Kris? I didn't need to. They already had their own plan.

Don Juan le Graye, Brown Dog Cafe, Logan Road, Woolloongabba, July, 2012 I mentioned it was I who rocked the boat. It wasn't a boat. It was a shopping trolley. I had obtained some part-time employment stacking shelves in a grocery store, just to make ends meet, while I waited for my first royalty cheque. My responsibility was the cleaning aisle. It wasn't my first choice, but the manager said that I had to respect the hierarchy and the seniority of other stackers. I made a few enquiries of my confreres and learned it might take me up to two years to qualify for the vegetable section. I didn't have the time to wait. Still, damned if I wasn't going to make it the best cleaning aisle of any grocery store in the world.

Rush-Ann Beckinbaugh, God-fearing America, July 2012

It’s a type that’s all too common these days – the free-thinking intellectual. These radicals are much less willing to “ditto” any properly received wisdom, it seems. I observed a particular group of them just recently who seemed, on the surface, reasonable and well-mannered, which made their malignancy all the more dangerous. The names I caught were Jenn, Stephen, and Spenky (though the last one went by any number of handles, as though he had something to hide). There were two others, as well, but they’re currently unidentified. I did hear one was from Tyrone, PA, and the other from Milford, MA. This group was headed to a Radiohead concert set somewhere in Colorado at the time I overheard their conversation. One thing that struck me was how interested they were in books that are, if not subversive, at least ones set squarely in the secular humanist tradition. Several authors I recognized, ones like bandana-man David Foster Wallace and intersex-obsessed Jeffrey Eugenides, were among their favorites. Russian and South American writers were represented, as well. It doesn’t take the sense God gave geese to know what that means. The young woman, a likely feminazi, also harped on an anticompetitive theme. In this case, I believe it was free and open competitions among canines she was railing against. The youngest in this group was a student in Colorado. I witnessed his stubborn refusal to toe the line when it came to the most obvious, dare I say “right,” interpretations of the Word of God. Had I been thinking, I’d have asked them in the spirit of eye-for-an-eye why they weren’t in that ill-fated movie theatre, with legally concealed weapons so that they could have taken that nutcase down. Why can’t there be more young people like that rather than these smarty-pants who read fictions and throw around terms like post-modern. It makes me want to post what modern young people ought to be doing with their time. It’s not following ringleaders from other countries like Don Juan le Graye who seem almost worshipful of cultures outside the border. With the immigration problems we face reaching crisis proportions, we cannot afford having our so-called intellectual elite getting soft on the issue. I’m reminded of a line by Douglas Niedermeyer, a highly regarded ROTC officer: “You’re all worthless and weak. Drop and give me twenty.” I wanted to throw tomatoes, but got the feeling that would have suited them just fine.

Mary R, Casa di Enchilada, Boyle Heights, CA, July 2012

It’s not like we planned for things to go so horribly wrong. Really, we didn’t. Or at least I didn’t. Who knows what goes on in the mind of Kris under the weight of all those books she perpetually carries? Maybe this calamity had been on her mind all along? Trying to be chivalrous I offered to help carry some for her as we got out of the convertible but she clutched them possessively and snapped “No!” and walked on ahead of me. Well shit, at least I still had the carafe. I took a swig of Don Juan’s Jesus Juice and slowly followed Kris to room 405. Something was brewing. We didn’t so much enter Don Juan’s room as we stumbled into it, and him, as he awkwardly greeted us. He was suspicious. He looked at my hand, the carafe, he looked at Kris. None of us moved for several minutes. Finally Kris walked over to a small folding table and placed her books down, turning around slowly to reveal what she was really hiding. To this day I can’t walk passed a fruit and veggie stand without shivering.

Don Juan le Graye, Cafe Essence, Tottenham Street, Buranda, July, 2012 I looked at Kris and Mary again. Like all of the women who fall for me, they were beautiful, intelligent, independent, but most of all discerning. The same, only different, like two peas in a pod. They had caught me too early in the day. I was still exhausted and they were full of beans. They looked at me and then at the couch. I tried to remain as cool as a cucumber, but uncharacteristically, I went as red as a beetroot. They could probably smell Rosie on me. Normally, I'm the kind of guy who knows his onions, but they could tell I was in a pickle. They eyeballed the carafe again. I handed it to them like it was a hot potato. Pass it on, don't return. "Why don't you guys go for a drive into town, while I veg out for a while?" Kris looked at the bed, which was unmade, but that wasn't a surprise. "I warn you, though, when I get up, I've got to pack my bag and get out of town." I looked at the couch. "Some time today, when the afternoon shift starts, the manager's going to find out about his daughter. And I don't want to be here when he does." If all went according to plan, I would catch up with Rosie in New Orleans, in a week's time. But I didn't tell the girls that.

Kris Readerman, Acela Car # 3421, Amtrak Crescent en route to New Orleans, July, 2012
I didn't mean to be so curt with Mary, but I was preoccupied with the evil we had to combat. As I turned around, with the carafe in one hand, I revealed to Mary and Ian the black heart in the middle of The Brown Shirt Café....

a juicer.

Kris Readerman, Acela Car # 3421, Amtrak Crescent en route to New Orleans, July, 2012
Mary gasped and took a step backwards. Don Juan looked startled and glassy-eyed at the same time (one of his many specialties), and looked longingly at the couch, at the floor, at the carafe, anywhere but at the juicer. I grasped his arm and pleaded with him, "We need you to focus, DJ. This juicer poses a threat to the freedom, even the identity, of vegetables everywhere. It makes them appear to be fruit. For the good of vegetables and freedom-loving poets everywhere, you have to focus. We need you, and we need to find Jim as soon as possible. He has the combination of scientific acumen and poetic sensibility that we need to fight this danger. Do you know where he is?"

Mary R, Casa di Enchilada, Boyle Heights, CA, July 2012

Jim? Oh yes, of course I remember him. The last time I saw him he was at The Brown Shirt Cafe with Jason, Jenn and Stephen not long after the publication of "A Catalogue of Grievances". Of course, this was all long before Juicergate. We were all wide eyed and hopeful. Kris had that effect on people back then. We all speculated on what happened to Jim that night. Don Juan led him into the back room and that’s all I know. I...I just can't talk about this anymore. Can we stop the tape?.....

Rush-Ann Beckinbaugh, God-fearing America, July 2012

In a chance second encounter (OK, no, that's a lie -- I heard they were looking for a rhubarb, and I was just the person to give them one), I learned a bit more. As luck would have it, I was able to identify the one from MA, the bluest state of them all. His name is either Jason or Jay-san. If it's the latter, he is very likely Jay Rubin, the translator of foreign fiction. Do we see a theme here people? Why is it suddenly fashionable to hate America? It's as though the liberal media has infiltrated the publishing houses and is brainwashing impressionable young minds with hogwash that, ironically enough, even the vegans are swallowing.

Don Juan le Graye, Norman Hotel, Ipswich Road, Woolloongabba, July, 2012 By the time Kris and Mary returned from town a few hours later, I'd had a nap, got dressed, packed my bag and was ready to abandon the mess of my room. I was preparing for what the French call an immaculate absconsion. Meanwhile, I'd found half a bottle of cheap red that I'd forgotten about, and had transferred it into the carafe. I'd drunk one glass, and was almost ready for another nap, but the afternoon shift was fast approaching and I wanted to be gone by then. Then Kris tried to attract my attention to something mechanical in her hand. I didn't want to look. It was something new-fangled, I mean I'm only a poet, not a technocrat, besides I had other priorities. Kris muttered something about this thing, a jooser, she called it, threatening the integrity of vegetables. I didn't know what she was talking about. Then I realised that she was concerned that this thing could blend fruit and vegetables together in some inter-species cross-pollination, the effects of which could not be predicted. "I mean," she said, "Can you imagine mixing beetroot and carrots with orange juice and ginger? Yuck. Not to mention the effect on your health." I had to take her word for it. I had never even thought of the possibility. Where I came from, fruit was eaten or juiced, I grant you that, but a vegetable wasn't a vegetable, unless it was edible. You had to chew it with your teeth, not drink it. Veg-edible, you know what I mean? Then she asked me if I knew where Jim was. I didn't have a clue, but I saw my opportunity. "Um, last I saw him, he was headed down to New Orleans." Mary intervened, "Right, that's where we're headed. First thing tomorrow morning." I looked at the jooser and thought, now I have two problems. I have to work out where I'm going to sleep tonight (and with whom). And I have to work out how to get in contact with Jim and tell him to get his ass down to The Big Easy. It was going to be tough. Cell phones weren't even invented in those days, and I didn't have a dollar to my name. I didn't even have a phone number where I could reach him or a mutual acquaintance. Still, I figured I had three days up my sleeve. What I hadn't counted on was that Jim might find us first.

Jim Neurons-on-stilts, Deep Woods, Upstate NY, July 2012

I remember it very well. Actually, I don’t, not at all beyond a certain point. I do know that it was all very confusing at first. What a mess. Juices of every color flying in all directions, spewing from a very loud machine in the middle of The Brown Shirt Café. Everyone had ugly splotches of icky, uncoordinated color on their shirts and faces. I was aghast. These were my friends! At least I had thought so. But all I could say was, “Plants have feelings too!” I was thinking through my arguments, getting ready to make a heroic stand. Do plants have neurons? I couldn’t remember. That didn’t sound right. Then they started yelling, something about vegetables are sacred, I couldn’t quite make it out. They didn’t seem to mind so much about the fruits. Then Don Juan came in and grabbed me by the arm, muttering something about ownership of the machine and payment for my crimes. He took me in the back room to “discuss the matter”, looking back with a flourish at the lovely and intelligent ladies. He seemed very interested in their reactions. They seemed impressed with the way he pushed me around - he was so dominant. It all went black after that. I think I confessed to owning a juicer. That’s the last I can remember. Except there was something about going to New Orleans.

Don Juan le Graye, Red Brick Hotel, Annerley Road, Woolloongabba, July, 2012 I still feel a bit guilty about that. Jim saying, "Plants have feelings too!" And straight back at him, Mary says, "Yeah, they feel good alright...in my tummy." Poor Jim, but did we laugh.

Kris Readerman, Acela Car # 3421, Amtrak Crescent en route to New Orleans, July, 2012
It feels funny to be talking to you en route to New Orleans, since that destination played such a crucial role for the Cabbage Detectives. Mary and I sensed that New Orleans was an important place for us to take a poetic stand for the rights of vegetables everywhere. We knew that many green peppers and onions found fulfillment as ingredients in jambalaya and étoufée, noble ends for noble vegetables. At the same time, New Orleans coffee shops were starting to attract Tomatoistas as well as kindred leftist poets. We wanted to make a stand, join forces with our brothers and sisters in poetry, hurl some coleslaw, and prevent the infiltration of juicers in the French Quarter. After the great juicer riot at The Brown Shirt Café, Mary, Don Juan and I went into action. Mary took Viajero by the arm, explained our plan, and steered her towards the convertible. (Viajero was in touch with another group of cabbage detectives, and she was planning to contact them so they could meet us in New Orleans.) Jim seemed disoriented, muttering and waving a pineapple in the air. Don Juan steered him toward the back room of the café, and led Jim back out a few minutes later, with several boxes of red wine in tow. “Fresh supplies,” he smiled, as he managed to maneuver Jim and the wine to the convertible. I took a deep breath, liberated a crate of carrots, grabbed Jay Rubin by the hand, and followed my comrades to the car. Mary jumped behind the wheel, and we took our seats -- Don Juan was in charge of the radio, Viajero was cleaning her knife, Jim was holding the pineapple tenderly, Jay was speaking Japanese to his cat, while I was navigating. Map fluttering in the breeze, with the shouts of Tomatoiastas ringing in our ears, we swung onto the road and towards our destiny.

Don Juan le Graye, South Bank Markets, South Bank Parklands, South Brisbane, July, 2012 One thing we always tried to do was to stand on an international stage and project our poetry, our politics and our thoughts to a multi-national audience. Yet our multi-nationalism also lead to a serious misunderstanding. The very name of our movement, the Visceral Realists, was the result of a mistranslation. Let me tell you how it occurred. In the beginning, we received no local publicity for our meetings. The very first time any journalist reported on our activities was when the Guardian (I now understand why they call it "the Grauniad") sent somebody over to see what was happening on our side of the ocean. No matter how much goodwill this represented, the fact remained that the journalist spoke very little Spanish and was heavily reliant on a Mexican translator who in turn spoke very little English, surely a recipe for disaster. The reality was that we were genuinely starving artists and poets, and the one thing we aspired to outside our work was three square meals a day. So the English translation of the Spanish name for our movement should have been the "Victual Realists". We weren't so much interested in feeling something in our gut, having a gut reaction, we just wanted to fill our guts with a decent meal. A little red wine would also help. We had a chance to correct the error in translation, but ultimately when we sat down to discuss how to go about it, we thought that "visceral" might do a better job of scaring our opponents with its connotation of "gutsy". So "Visceral Realists" it remained. Of course, food remains the goal of every action. In the absence of meat and fresh fruit, we were heavily reliant on vegetables, hence the importance of cabbages and tomatoes, peppers and onions, potatoes and pumpkins. Our very existence was owed to vegetables, just as much as our poetry was composed as an ode to vegetables.

Viajero Haldez, Howards's End, Macondo, July, 2012

I'm not sure exactly when the rift that almost tore our movement in two started, but i have a good idea why it started. Kris and Mary had always agreed with us in the need to save vegetables, and it was actually they who had stood strongest against the ravages of those damn fascists, the Tomatoistas. I had fought with them for a long while because i believed in the rights of both fruits and vegetables. ..but then the trouble started. Someone, i don't know who, started to suggest that we shouldn't worry about fruits, in our struggles, but only about vegetables. We probably would have carried on a bit longer as we were in our early days, carefree, and so strong in our beliefs, if fate hadn't somehow introduced a juicer into our struggle. Since juicers are used even more prominently in the liquidation of fruits than it is of vegetables, we started to re-examine our goals. I don't know who it was who realized first that we weren't sure whether tomatoes were fruit or vegetables. It might have been me, because in those days Juan was on the rebound and more interested in the inside of his carafe and a pretty girl's loins (and should i add décolletage?). The astute, analytical man i knew, also had another side, i was soon to find - at certain times the poet in him would come to the fore, and it was at these times that he tended to go through many carafe's of that disgustingly sweet Australian wine that he loved so much. Heheh, this reminds me of how, after a few drinking sessions with him, i always remembered to bring my own wine, the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot that i loved so much. It was at one of these sessions when we had fed poor Jim too much wine (he really loved the wine i had brought; he just couldn't get enough of it) that Jim blurted it out: Shouldn't we be caring about fruit as well? They also have feelings, you know! I think he wanted to say that they have neurons too, but i don't think he was too sure - probably all the wine had affected his own neurons at that point, and i don't blame him; in that smoke-filled room, everything seemed a haze and a blur and a great babble of voices, you know how it goes where a lot of people are having fun together - things tend to become a bit chaotic. Then it dawned on me- the Tomatoes and the Tomatoistas! We might have been expending all our energies fighting a group who oppressed fruit, not vegetables! It all depended, i realized, on whether semantically speaking, we were going to class tomatoes as fruit or vegetables. Jim was a scientist (A scientist with poetic leanings) and i had a strong feeling that he might support my stance that they are fruit, since scientifically speaking they are fruit. ...but what would the poets say? They might decide that poetically speaking, tomatoes were vegetables. We were poised on the edge of a potential rift that could cause deep divisions within our movement. I started to have some other ideas as well, ideas that i was almost too afraid (though i usually carried a big knife and was therefore more intrepid than most girls from my background) to utter. I was starting to think that we shouldn't be discriminating between fruits and vegetables at all. After all, plants are plants, and they all have feelings. I was convinced that all plants have feelings. Even the nasty ones who carried thorns. Support of these ideas came from the most unexpected quarter.

Jim Neurons-on-stilts-y-strike, Deep Woods, Upstate NY, July 2012

In those days, I still thought that all of life’s problems could be resolved by our deep beliefs in poetic art, and my own trust in the scientific method. When I can get my neurons to work for a little while, I still believe it - at least, I like to think so. But it was around this time that the core of our movement, and my own thoughts and beliefs, began first to fragment and then to show deep fissures that only the human spirit could hope to repair. I began to struggle with the big issues. What was a vegetable, exactly? And how could one say that a fruit was any different, or the same? Wasn’t this all just semantics, or a scientific game of some kind, probably just to get grant funding? And how could all those plants follow the sun in their growth, and the fruits and vegetables ripen to taste so good, unless they could think and feel just as we did? After all, we were all sun worshipers in our own way - how could it be otherwise? At this point, I became aware that the brilliant and beautiful Viajero was thinking similar thoughts - at least, there were signs of it. I don’t know, there was just a flash of confusion in her dazzling countenance. I could also see her lips moving, repeating the words “tomatoes are fruit!” over and over. That was an important clue. Of course she was correct, as usual, and her insight confused me even more. Which side were we on? How could we fight against our misguided brothers and sisters, the Tomatoistas, if we shared a common cause in defense of ‘true’ vegetables? And, most important of all, how could we ever get three square meals a day if we couldn’t eat anything with feelings? I was convinced that only our visionary leader, Don Juan, could answer these questions. But first we had to shift his focus from the red wine and beautiful women, and that would not be easy. Not at all.

Esteban Rubixo-Blanco, outskirts of Macondo, July 2012

I can’t help feeling that the support of a movement or opposition to it hinges on presumptions, vagaries, and disinformation. Can the same be said of the Tomatoistas? I try to be fair. It’s easy to be seduced by order and strength, and some tribalistic causes thrive on it. But when it becomes apparent that a line has been crossed into fascism, we need to sound the alarm. So it’s in that spirit that I share something I read about them on the wall of el baño.

They say it with voce that’s sotto
But that doesn’t weaken their motto:
“Fuck labels,” they chant, ostinato,
“We rule the fruit/veggie to-mah-to.”

Doesn’t look like they want to stand for a common cause with anyone but themselves. I guess every story needs conflict.

Mary R, Frolic Room, Hollywood, CA, July 2012

I remember the very first time Jim said it. Looking back I don't know why I was so surprised, he had seemed on the verge of losing it for a while, having spent the better part of our journey caressing a pineapple and cooing softly into it's spikes. Viajero attempted to intervene "I can slice that for you" she said, the blade of her knife catching the light menacingly. Jim looked horrified. We all nodded in agreement, yes, yes, slice that baby up! We were all so hungry and starting to get resentful of Jim hoarding this pineapple in his lap while we poured wine into our growling stomachs. Don Juan had made the point that in drinking the wine we were in essence supporting the movement, consuming grapes to nourish our souls and doing our bit to save vegetables. And that's when Jim really lost it. He looked up, his hands shredded and bleeding from the pineapple spikes, his eyes wild and dark "We should be saving fruit too". Silence. I was driving and trying to keep my eyes on the road, stealing glances into the stricken faces in the backseat. Jay was the first to speak "Fuck fruit!" he yelled, "What about tofu?! Tofu!!" Don Juan grabbed him by the arms and stopped him pouncing to the front seat and attacking Jim. Jim was still clutching the Pineapple, blood streaked down his hands. Kris lit up a cigarette and looked to the horizon calmly "Are you saying Tofu has feelings too Jay? Because if you are, I don't even know who I am anymore". This stopped Jay trying to get to Jim and he settled back in his seat. We all calmed down and pondered this for a moment. No one knew how to react to this. "Tofu...tofu...tofu..." Jim was muttering trance-like and distracted. I stepped on the pedal, hoping that the sooner we got to our next pit stop the less chance there was of bloodshed. But I should've known better, I should've foreseen that they wouldn't let him be. My eyes were on the road, my shoulders tense, my nerves frayed. So I didn't actually see who lunged towards the pineapple first. If I had to guess I'd say it was Don Juan. Viajero was polishing her knife, Jay had momentarily sat back in his seat....I'm sure it couldn't have been Kris. I mean, of course I can't be completely sure, she had been so quiet, a little too quiet. All I know is one minute we were flying down the highway with Jim's "tofu...tofu..." mutterings and the next thing I knew I was veering out of control, the tires were screeching and next to me pieces of pineapple were flying through the air amongst bloody screams.

Magdelanye, Casa Perdido, somewhere off the 49th parallel, July 2012....

Isolated in limbo,a relative newcomer at that, I can only conjecture how it was before. I don’t come into it at all until near the end.Everyone is entitled to their own small eccentricities.I will try to stick to the facts with some consideration for their emotional impact.As it happened, Sir Ian was definately feeling unwell. Ever since his acolyte and den mother, Traviolla. had gone off rather abruptly, on one of her impulsive quests for knowledge(it seemed abrupt to him.she could have been planning this for quite some time) he had been feeling increasingly restless. He had not admitted to himself how fond,how dependent he had become on her goodwill and her quirky, irrepressible sense of humour.Besides, she knew where everything in the workshop had its place. His wife was a great comfort of course,she tolerated his peculiarities and even inspired and encouraged him in his work, but there were some areas his wife refused to face. His workshop, for instance.

Perhaps in every profession, but even more so in an alchemists case,a lot of the paraphernalia of practice is not necessarily in regular use. Standing out from the common and the essential tools of the trade,above the tables cluttered with glass retorts and vials,alembics,rare metals, gemstones, piping, papyrus scrolls and pots of ink,forgotten winecups and peels of dubious origin(fruit or vegetable,at hat stage it was hard to tell)and in cases attached imaginately to the walls which were layered with charts and maps,were the exotic accoutrements that,while seldom called upon, conferred a certain glamour to the meticulously ordered mess.

“Now where could she have put that thing?” Sir Ian was muttering to himself, not a good sign.He liked to be surrounded by acolytes to whom his mutterings could be directed,commented upon, expanded, and documented in the fat book containing the wise sayings of the master alchemist. In a fit of organizational genius,(and you have to remember this was quite some while ago, before the age of the computer) Traviolla had binders made for each project and one on the general order of serious experiments,called GOOSE for short, to which Traviolla had thoughtfully appended all the access codes and command words needed for their work. Given its revolutionary nature, they had initiated their two hired scribes into the cult (the union wasnt too happy about this) and now everyone took turns at record keeping and anyone who was a member could add their additional commentaries. Because they all required a good measure of solitude in which to conduct their own researches, meetings of the cult took place on the 3rd Wednesday of the month. I understand that in the past yhat this was not so, that students and acolytes,random poets and media types and stylish fans had once converged on the place,until Sir Ian, befuddled by the frenetic pace, finding once too often a naked couple sleeping in his bath, or underfoot when he was in his Don Juan persona,or just needed a little quiet in which to sift his thoughts,had concocted a plan where each member of the cult carried out their own affairs and investigations in their own rooms,linked only by their access codes. Traviolla had worked out the details.Now Traviolla was off gallivanting, and he couldn’t seem to find the deuced GOOSE just when it was imperative that he do so immediately. Come the 3rd Wednesday, acolytes would congregate with platters of tasty morsels supplemented by Sir Ians largess,wild game on the spit and a flask of dark ale and one of pale.Supplemented too with the various potions and elixirs produced during their monthly ritual contests to see who could concoct the most fabulous spell for any given category.Sir Ians most abiding interest happened to be in the culinary category,but of course he had an abiding interest in all things arcane, especially the Pharaonic and Byronic eras, and he always entered (and mostly won) the haiku contest and had several times taken the highest prize in the spell casting division.Sir Ian felt his eyes grow moiist as he basked in a momentary glow of pleasure at his modest acheivements.Then his face fell as he remembered what he had forgotten. That is, he remembered THAT he had forgotten and almost inadvertently he let out a loud groan. He could have stopped himself, he could have caught that groan and silenced it, or he could have turned it into a snarl,which would have been far more satisfactory, but he was tired and depressed and a bit flatulent from his last meal,he let it go.No one was listening. There was no one there. Yes, there were spies about with their listening devices, but they didn’t count. Petulantly,Sir Ian sat back down in his chair. Lacing his long,elegant fingers around his bony knees,he considered his options.

Viajero Haldez, Lakeshore State institution, Hollywood, CA, July 2012

I'll never forget that night when disaster struck. Mary was driving that night. I remember that detail clearly because she kept complaining about how hungry she was, and i was getting really worried about the fact that she was drinking a lot of wine to quench her hunger pangs, but nothing to eat. We had only one pineapple left, but Jim had decided to take possession of the thing, and he was brooding over it like a hen over her egg. I still clearly remember thinking that, because i was thinking about how hungry i was, and how i would have loved to have had a lovely boiled egg.. heck, i was hungry enough to have eaten an egg's shell, at that point. I kept trying to pry the pineapple gently from Jim's fingers (I always had a huge amount of respect for Jim - Jim was like a friend and mentor rolled into one for me), but hunger was making me irrational. I was, at that point in time, not quite decided about the fruit/vegetable dilemma yet, and although soulmates like Jim agreed with me that fruit surely must also have feelings, he himself said and Kris affirmed it - if we had to stop eating fruit, we would die of hunger. I suggested that the key was, that we had to eat them with respect .
The poets seemed to be divided over this. Jim seemed to feel that this was not enough, and Jay seemed to be strangely obsessed with tofu. The more i told him that tofu was made from soy beans, the less he wanted to listen. I think he might have confused tofu with something else, but i'm not sure;- our communication lines had broken down due to arguments about what was fruit and what was vegetables. That night, in the car - Jay was sitting in the front seat next to Mary - he was really losing it over the tofu. He started getting into an argument with Jim, and i suddenly remembered that i had forgotten to sharpen my knife, so i got out my little grinding stone and started honing it. Kris was just smoking one of her endless cigarettes and staring out of the window- she usually had the knack of telling really amusing stories, but i think the arguments were starting to wear her down as well. I don't know how it happened. I was concentrating on sharpening my knife, and thinking that if only i wasn't so very hungry, i would have shown Jim a bit more solidarity. I had just thought up an argument that i wanted to put to him - i was going to say that it was good for plants if we ate fruit, because that's how the seeds get propagated, when all hell broke loose. The car lurched, and threw me to the side. I remember thinking that the knife must have gone into my arm, because there was something hot, dark and wet running over my arm. The last thing i remember before losing consciousness, was thinking ;"Is that blood? Please don't let that be blood!"

Don Juan le Graye, Pearl Cafe, Woolloongabba, July, 2012 I can't recall the detail of how the car left the road and propelled into the field. All I can remember is Kris calling out, "Now, we'll all be fuckin' vegetables." At the time, I hoped she meant "fuckin'" in the adjectival sense. I was the first to regain consciousness. I looked around, the car was still upright, but the windscreen was missing and there was blood everywhere. At least, I thought it was blood. Needless to say, I fainted again, it must only have been for a few minutes. Then when I woke up, I realised there were seeds in the blood on my forearm and it was a lighter red than I had expected. I scraped my index finger through the blood and lifted it to my lips. It tasted familiar. It wasn't blood, it was tomato juice, well the juice of a tomato. Oh, no, don't tell me I've turned into a tomato? Is this what Kris had predicted? Then I noticed the green leaves and tangled vines all around us. We weren't dead, we weren't vegetables, we had crashed into a field alright, but it was a farm, and of all things it could have been, it was a tomato farm. This was the stuff of fiction. Our lives had been saved by tomatoes. Surely, this called for a new perspective on the great fruit and vegetable schism? This was the epiphany that would bring us together. It started with a pineapple and ended with a tomato. Well, a whole field full of them, and us in the middle. Alive, saved, hungry.

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

You are energy
Preserved in shiny red fruit.
Holy tomato.

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

Oh, sweet pineapple,
The Germans call you Ananas.
Music to my ears.

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

Oh mighty pumpkin!
No need to be a bumkin.
City folk, enjoy!

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

I'd like a parrot
That will eat a carrot and
Keep me company.

Viajero Haldez, Lakeshore State institution, Greenfields, Vermont. July 2012

I walk through a pumpkin patch and think of fritters
warm and amber and spicy with cinnamon, fragrant
with lemon and the sweetness from the cane.
And i think: Thank you for this fruit.

I walk though a patch of tomatoes,
these fruits so ambiguous; not sweet
not sour; -but both; so versatile.
If we had not ketchup, what would
potato fries be? Undressed vegetables.

Oh fruit! Ye fruit who have been misunderstood!
Oh fruits, who have been misplaced
under the foul label "vegetable".
How can i emancipate thee
from this vile misuse?

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

Somebody help me
Turn this bean curd into a
Tofu recipe.

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

Humble potato
I can't find a word that rhymes
Except tomato.

Viajero Haldez, Lakeshore State institution, Greenfields, Vermont. July 2012

When i think of you,
my love
i think of
the tangy delight
of the passion fruit.

When i think of you,
my love
i think of
the sweet crispness
of a big red apple.

When i think of you,
my love
i think of the
juicy succulence
of a curved pear.

Oh love!
how i wish you reminded me
of a large, cool cucumber!

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

Fruit and vegetables,
No one without the other,
Organic balance.

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012

My big banana
Wants to make fruit salad with
Your juicy mango.

Mary R, Quam's Farmers Market, Colonia Condesa, Mexico City DF, July 2012


Happy tomatoes!
We all survived the car crash
Pero la piña?

Doctor Hedley Bayleaf, Ipswich Mental Hospital, Ipswich, July, 2012

The subject Don Juan le Graye first came to my attention when the Department of Corrections reported that an illegal immigrant they had detained in prison was writing reams of words on toilet paper in his room. He had been arrested while trespassing on a tomato farm on the northern outskirts of Brisbane. Initially, the police treated it as a criminal matter and, in the absence of family or visible means of support, he was kept in prison for three months while he was awaiting trial. Then his mental health came into question. The kitchen reported that he would only eat tomatoes and drink tomato juice. Eventually, the fact that the writings were not in English prompted the prison superintendent to make some enquiries and she discovered that the language was Spanish. She knew that I had spent some time in Cuba, and sent them to me for further investigation. I quickly realised that they weren't just the works of a madman, but that they were Spanish haiku, seventeen syllables per sheet, to be more precise. I am no expert in the form, but what they appear to lack in insight or lyricism (if that is a word), they make up for in brevity. It was only when we received an enquiry from the Mexican Consul that we realised that our detainee was the great Visceral Realist poet, Don Juan le Graye. The subject presents some signs of head trauma, but they don't appear to be recent. He seems to have a literary fixation with all fruit and vegetables, not just tomatoes. I don't know whether his poetry has any merit, but we are doing our best to help him deal with the predicament he finds himself in. Hopefully, he can be restored to sound mental health and returned to a productive role in society, even though I recognise that he is a poet.

Don Juan le Graye, Ipswich Mental Hospital, Ipswich, July, 2012

Big fat pineapple
Not too sweet nor too bitter
Served in a fritter.

Jim Neurons-on-stilts-y-strike, Deep Woods, Upstate NY, July 2012

For years I have struggled in vain to fully understand the meaning of those key moments, that turning point in all of our lives. How could our life-quest be so fervent, and so meaningful, and yet so empty, especially in the area of calories? I couldn’t come to terms with it then, and honestly, I still can’t today. As we drove toward New Orleans in the convertible, top down, I thought I had a flash of real insight. This was BIG - or so I thought at the time. I began to see it as soon as I focused on the pineapple in my hands. The prickly bits were just enough to force my Neurons-on-strike to work for a change. Worthless neurons, prodded into action by pain. And what a revelation! The word itself - pineapple. Amazing word, that. I mused, and I pondered. Was it a pine, or an apple, or a yellowish fruit encased in prickly pain? Well, of course! It was all three! Somehow, it transcended all the issues that had divided us. Everything was disguised, of course. It didn’t grow on pines. It wasn’t an apple, not like other apples at least. It inflicted pain on all who would eat it. But that last was the secret I had sought! Feel the pain, justify the gain. If I bled for it, I could eat it without remorse. A sense of closure and peace washed over me. All was bliss. But then Jay Rubin intruded on my thoughts with his fixation on tofu. And tofu upset all of the delicate balance in my fickle neuronal nets. What in the world was tofu? I mean really. Who would ever think to make this stuff? It looked like week-old pudding, but shook like a creeping mass from a 50s sci-fi movie. And the taste! Well, there wasn’t any. I mean NO TASTE AT ALL! Yuck... How could I work tofu into my new food order? It was impossible, and Jay Rubin just wouldn’t leave it alone. But then, something clicked in my head, and I remembered. Tofu can taste like anything, and like everything! All one had to do was add the flavor of choice, and there it was! Tofu was the unifying substance, the answer to all questions about food and feelings! I mean, who cares about some old, partially digested beans, anyway. Here was the answer to all of our problems! I started to say something about this incredible breakthrough. Tofu, the miracle cure. But just at that moment, someone - I can’t remember who - lunged at the pineapple. My grip on it tightened, from pure instinct. My pineapple! With a tofu solution, I thought. Just listen to me for a sec! But before I could say another word, I was mobbed by pineapple lungers, and the car started sliding out of control. Blood was everywhere - mine at first, I think. But then we were all flying through the air, and everything went black. When I came to, there was WAY too much red stuff on me to be just my blood, or anyone else’s. And the smell! That fecund, farmy smell, with green stuff growing, and a red juice that tasted like - TOMATOES! Overcome with emotion, I faded to black, but I remember thinking that everything had changed for all of us, and all might yet be well.

Mary R, Frolic Room, Hollywood, CA, July 2012

Of course I only thought it was right to get some answers after the dust had settled and we had parted ways. Kris had mentioned something about going to Chile to find some specific chilies to go with her tomatoes. I watched her pack, her ticket bound for Santiago clutched in her hand eagerly. I didn't want to shatter her remaining optimism by telling her that she was fighting a losing battle, that the movement was a shambles and most of us had come to our senses or at least run out of money and given up. I hated to be the one to break it to her so I didn't. Plus I was afraid she'd burn me with her cigarette. She had a deranged and hardened expression and I watched her leave quickly and without ceremony, then wandered down to The Brown Shirt Café. Why? I couldn't say. Sentimentality perhaps. Of course none of the faces were familiar there anymore. The stools were occupied by a meager splattering of late afternoon barflies, a couple of which gave me a halfhearted glance before going back to brooding into their Mezcals. I had never known the old place so lonely. Jay had started his own tofu manufacturing company by then and was rarely around, Viajero was last seen wielding her knife to carjack an unsuspecting couple and as far as I know no one has heard from her since. Jim? Jim is a whole other story. I thought about him as I turned into the Instituto para Los Adictos al Tomate and as they led me down the cold hallway and into Don Juan's room I detected a faint sickly sweet smell. Fruit and sunshine and far away places. Behind me at the reception desk a nurse's radio faintly played a tune that jarred me "If you like Pina Coladas And getting caught in the rain If you're not into yoga If you have half a brain..." I cringed. I pulled out my tattered copies of "Limbo" and "A Catalogue of Grievances". They unlocked Don Juan's room and I hesitated, took a deep breath and entered.

Victor Bray, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012 Victor Bray, here. Yes, the Victor Bray. Motorsport legend, drag racer and tomato grower. Nine months ago now, maybe more, I found a raving lunatic wandering around my tomato farm. I didn't know what to do, so I reported him to the Police. Then I read in the paper that he's a famous Mexican poet, he's just got out of a mental asylum because they thought he was loopy (but he's just Mexican) and now he's destitute. I felt so bloody guilty. So I rang up the authorities and I offered him a job on my farm. He's a good worker, but even better he's a wizard with my cars. So far, there hasn't been anything he couldn't fix. I asked him if he wanted to come to the World Drag Racing Championships. There only three months away and I'm just finalising my team. He asked me where they were, and I said, "New Orleans." He shuddered. I don't know what that was about. Then he smiled and said yes. I worked out that "Don Juan" means Ian in Scottish. I went to school with a guy called Ian Graye. I wonder what became of him? He was definitely no Don Juan.

Don Juan le Graye, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012 So I called out, "Victor!" "Yes, my little Mexican friend?" He didn't know I came from Chile. "Victor, what is this green monstrosity in your garden?" It looked familiar, but I had never seen any vegetable this large (I'm pretty sure it wasn't a fruit). "That, Don, is a cabbage. I'm trying to grow the world's biggest cabbage." I paused while I processed this information. "Victor, can you eat it?" "Of course, but not yet," he replied. "How would you cook it?" He looked at me as if I was stupid, the way English-speaking people look at all South Americans, but he didn't mean it this way. "Well, my favourite recipe is sauteed, with tofu, diced tomato and chilli." This brought back fond memories that I hadn't accessed for a long time. "Haha, I could feed a whole carload of my friends with that cabbage and some tofu." When we finished in New Orleans, I had to find my friends, eat some cabbage and tofu, drink some red wine and tell some tall tales. I didn't think anybody would believe mine. But I hadn't heard their stories yet.

Victor Bray, Bray Family Tomato Farm, Bray's Road, Kallangur, July, 2012 Then I said, "A cabbage that big, you'll need a pretty big knife, Don." Then Don doubled over laughing. I'd never seen him laugh so much. "Never mind, Big Victor, I know somebody with just the right knife." That was how I first heard about Viajero. He told me she was "the woman who rocks my shopping trolley". I don't know what that's all about. It must be a Mexican saying or something. They say Spanish is the loving tongue.

Don Juan le Graye, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, July, 2012 What Victor hadn't told me was that he was growing the cabbage for a World Big Vegetable Competition in Chicago, which by some good fortune was scheduled for the week before the World Drag Racing Championships. Well, I am proud to say that I am a friend of the Gold Medal Winner for the World's Biggest Cabbage 2012. But that is not where my story ends. Right now, Victor and I are at the airport in New Orleans and we've just discovered that somebody has stolen the contents of our crate, biggest cabbage and gold medal alike. All hell has broken loose. I've never seen Victor so angry. He looks at me and asks me (as if a Mexican in America would know), "Who do we call? Do we call Customs? The FBI? The CIA? Hillary Clinton? Interpol?" I look at him and I look back at the empty crate, and I say, "Big Vic, I am from Chile, but I know this...the only people who can help you...well, how do I tell you this in English so you will understand? The only people who can help you right now, in this particular situation, are, are...the Cabbage Detectives...and they are friends of mine."

Kris Readerman, Dining Car, Amtrak Crescent en route to New Orleans, July, 2012
I was at the airport, getting ready to board my flight to Chile, when I heard a page for me. It sounded urgent, so I got out of line, went to the customer service phone, picked it up, and heard, through the static, Don Juan le Graye. It was good to hear from him - the last I had seen him he was wondering through the tomato farm, tomato pulp still dripping from his face. (He was carrying the carafe, if I remember correctly - somehow, in all the destruction of the crash, he managed to hold onto it. Sometimes I wondered if it was surgically attached to his hand.) At any rate, Don Juan quickly explained the urgency of the situation - that the biggest cabbage in the world had been stolen, obviously by fascists who were still involved in the nefarious scheme to enslave all vegetables (yes, Viajero and Jim, and fruit too.) He asked me if I could join him and the other Cabbage Detectives at the New Orleans airport. I paused, and thought for a moment. I had never turned back from a revolutionary course before. I had a plan for visiting chile farmers in Chile and enlisting their help in our crusade. However, I realized that, even more important than my allegiance to an abstract cause, was the camaraderie I had felt with the other Cabbage Detectives. I remembered Jim with his pineapple, Jay balancing his cat on one leg and a container of tofu on the other, Viajero sharpening her knife and telling stories of time gone by, Mary reciting her latest poem while at the wheel of the convertible, and Don Juan looking for The Clash on the radio while grasping his carafe close to him. I couldn't turn Don Juan down. I told him I was on my way, rushed to the ticket counter to change my ticket to New Orleans, and boarded a flight right away, hoping I wouldn't be too late to help.