T<\/span>here were few things Gabriel Bish scorned more than those who adored him.<\/p>\n

Art groupies<\/em>, he called them. \u201cAll seeking a little sliver of me\u2014like a relic, a piece of the true cross! \u201d he declared, after the Berkeley incident\u00a0 \u201cTrying to keep themselves from feeling\u2026what?...empty, dull, whatever it is they want to escape. Via me.\u00a0 Little pieces of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deriding them, however, did not stop him from avidly collecting them.\u00a0 At every college symposium, theater conference, or performance festival he visited, he would hold court.\u00a0 He would sit on the stage, or in the center of the room.\u00a0 He would declaim Artaud and Blake. He would spin out the endlessly in-progress scenario for his masterpiece, The Buddha Train<\/strong>, waving hands like an orchestra conductor; he would question the assembled students and hangers-on, as if for a profile he was writing. By the end of the evening at least one or two had been added to the collection.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This was, of course, how I had been added to the collection\u2014a chance encounter, a performance in Albany, both his and my hometown.\u00a0 \u201cBut you\u2019re not like them, Neddo,\u201d Gabriel often assured me.\u00a0 \u201cYou understand.\u00a0 You see.\u00a0 The others just want want want.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did they want?\u00a0 To sleep with him, or to give him their manuscripts to read, their hearts to toss away, to gulp down a little of his essence, snatch a few sparks from his electric energy.\u00a0 Usually, they would disappear after they succeeded (or did not succeed) in obtaining what they wanted.\u00a0 But a few stuck around or snuck back eventually, becoming permanent members of The Buddha Train<\/strong> entourage.<\/p>\n

And now and then, someone utterly unlikely would also be swept up into his coterie, someone who did not seem to want anything, someone who was merely riveted by the force field that he was back then. Like Cheops Liptoffen.<\/p>\n

Liptoffen must have been about 60 at the time Gabriel acquired him, though he looked a good 20 years younger, small and wiry, built like the acrobat he had been in childhood (his family had been British Music Hall folk). In 1979, he was the acting chair of the new Performance Studies program at UC Berkeley, and the acclaimed author of Theater of Fools<\/strong> (Dolorous Press, 1978), a biting harangue about the follies of modern American theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think of this, Neddo?\u201d Gabriel trumpeted into my dorm room phone. \u00a0I had not heard from him in several weeks, did not even know where he was. \u201cMost theater makes us feel cold when it should set us on fire.\u00a0 Only a few angels of performance can haunt our dreams. Such a one is Gabriel Bish, whose magnificent work-in-progress The Buddha Train<\/strong> may yet engulf American Theater in the flame of true experience<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was early March.\u00a0 I was trying to study for a chem quiz but found myself (as I did many nights) day-dreaming about my erstwhile girlfriend Elizabeth, wondering when she would visit again, wondering when our fumbling sex life would begin to live up to its exquisite promise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an angel, did you know that, Neddo?\u00a0 This guy has the makings of my greatest groupie, wouldn\u2019t you say?\u00a0 I\u2019m at JFK right now, on my way out to Cal. This Liptoffen has me booked for five workshops.\u00a0 When is your spring break, Neddo?\u00a0 Need you to come out, be my sidekick again, help make the work run more smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hedged, said I might come if he really wanted me to come\u2014in truth, I would have gone anywhere he asked at that time\u2014but after a moment of\u00a0 rambling maybes, I realized he had already hung up.\u00a0 This was typical of Gabriel, who never said either hello or goodbye, as if conversation with him was forever ongoing.<\/p>\n

I immediately called Elizabeth, always adept at persuading me to do what I already wanted to do. But the Laughlin\u2019s line was busy busy busy. \u00a0When I finally did get through, the phone rang and rang, and no one answered. I imagined the whole hard-drinking clan lying on their manicured lawn in a stupor.\u00a0 A few days later, her mother brusquely informed me that Elizabeth had once again dropped out of school, that no one knew where she was, that she blamed me for this. You and that con man Bish<\/em>, she added.<\/p>\n

I hoped Elizabeth would show up at Morningside Heights, as she occasionally had during the past year, but she did not. Where she went when she vanished from Albany (at least 7 times between 1977 and 1980) was one of the many subjects we did not discuss.<\/p>\n

A few days later, I received an American Airlines ticket to San Francisco, with the words, Need You Now Neddo<\/em> scribbled across the front of the envelope.\u00a0 I packed an overnight bag with books and shaving stuff and shirts and underwear, and headed to the airport.<\/p>\n

Why did I go?<\/p>\n

My pre-med courses filled me with nothing but a sense of unease, like I was wearing clothes that did not quite fit me. I did well in my classes. I always did well in everything I didn\u2019t care about.\u00a0 But I only felt that thump thump of the excited heart when I saw Elizabeth, or when I hung out with Gabriel.<\/p>\n

I did not really know why.\u00a0 I did not really care.<\/p>\n

Gabriel was staying at the Berkeley Faculty Club, a strange, white, vaguely Greek building, way up in the green hills, above the campus. The white-jacketed attendant who showed me to Gabriel\u2019s room gave me a look of mild distaste, as if silently saying, Another one<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The thick wooden door was cracked open and the cedar-paneled room resembled a slightly upscale dormitory.\u00a0 It was so full of Gabriel\u2019s typical detritus (books, notebooks, sketch pads, empty glasses, empty bottles, both men and women\u2019s clothes flung everywhere) that at first I was not sure if anyone was actually there.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeddo!\u201d he shouted.\u00a0 He sprang up from beneath a pile of jeans and skirts on one of the beds. He looked, as he usually did, as if he had not remembered to shave or comb his mass of black curls for several days. \u201cWhere have you been? Workshop started an hour ago, for God\u2019s sake!\u201d<\/p>\n

The studio theater was in the back of the Dwinelle Annex, an old wooden building, which looked as if it had been erected temporarily many years before, and then forgotten.\u00a0 About 15 young men and women\u2014it was always mostly women\u2014were lying on the floor, some in yoga positions, some splayed out as if they were being drawn and quartered, chanting, vocalizing, singing.\u00a0 An older man, with immaculately close-cropped hair and wire-rimmed glasses, was sitting in a director\u2019s chair, sipping from a tall glass of what smelled like gin.\u00a0 He sprang up, saluted Gabriel, grabbed my arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must be Neddy,\u201d he said. \u201cLiptoffen. Heard so much about you from this man and\u2026others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNed,\u201d I managed.\u00a0 \u201cHe calls me Neddo, I have no idea why.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he does as he pleases, isn\u2019t that it?\u201d\u00a0 He laughed.\u00a0 \u201cAnd I do so enjoy his performance.\u00a0 When he actually shows up, hmmm?\u00a0 One is rarely bored by this man, eh, Neddy?\u00a0 Rather like watching a tiger, you know he can be dangerous, you know he could claw you apart, yet he\u2019s entrancing to watch, pacing about, roaring.\u00a0 Yes. Well, children, the maestro is here, do let\u2019s get started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabriel tossed a paper bag to me; inside were 20 digital thermometers. He sat down in the director\u2019s chair that Liptoffen had abandoned. After a moment, he glanced over at me, shrugged.<\/p>\n

He used to say that I knew what he wanted me to do before he knew it himself but that day\u2014jetlag, sensory overload\u2014I had no idea. \u201cGive those out to the kiddies, Neddo.\u00a0 The prologue\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

For the past few months, he had been working and re-working the opening images of his theater epic, The Buddha Train.<\/strong> Sometimes, this prologue centered on a tableau of temptations\u2014sensual cravings which would all be carted off when the Buddha Train arrived.\u00a0\u00a0 Other times, he demanded slow motion versions of mundane activities. Earlier in the week, I heard, he had commanded the performers to sit at a kitchen table and eat a small bowl of cereal for two hours<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fever,\u201d he began.\u00a0 \u201cLet me see it.\u00a0 Show it to me.\u201d\u00a0 He was not looking at anyone, he was staring up at the ancient beams of the wooden ceiling but all the other eyes in the room were on him. \u201cThe fever of this world, the illness of everyday life, the sickness, the sickness, that\u2019s what we\u2019re after today.\u00a0 Get out there on the stage.\u00a0 Suffer for me. What does Artaud say?\u00a0 We must be as victims burning at the stake, signaling to each other through the flames<\/em>\u2026 You ache, my friends, you are burning up, you are shaking, cold then hot, pain, pain. So, signal to me, my friends, do it!\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, the ragtag ensemble spread out all across the stage, sweating and shivering like some band of flu patients. \u201cNow!\u201d he shouted, after this went on for a very long time. \u201cNow, insert those thermometers into your sick little mouths, writhe, good, listen\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Suddenly, across the stage came a wave of digital sound\u2026dididit dididit dididit<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cThere,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s it, that\u2019s what I was looking for, the sound of our sick souls\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLovely!\u201d Liptoffen murmured.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet me a drink, would you, Neddo? This sick soul is thirsty.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a workshop, Gabriel always answered questions.\u00a0 Often, they were the same questions (How long have you been working on this piece?\u00a0 Is it true that all your ideas come from dreams? Are you a Buddhist?<\/em>) but his responses were almost never the same, so it was hard to tell which of the answers was actually true.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy a train?\u201d asked the doe-eyed girl in the clingy blue dress, who had been unable to lift her gaze from Gabriel for the past several hours.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s your connection to trains?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabriel smiled, as if he had never been asked this question.\u00a0 He had an electrifying smile, as narcissists so often do.\u00a0 \u201cMy father.\u00a0 Loved model trains.\u00a0 Had a whole electric train set down in the basement. Little shops, little people, little trees. The train circling through them, over and over, to nowhere. Hated the trains myself, couldn\u2019t stand it when he went down there, stayed down there, away from me. Crept down the stairs once, there he was wearing a railroad conductor\u2019s hat, watching the trains snake through the little town, Round and round<\/em>, he whispered, See it all go round and round<\/em>. So now, sometimes when I\u2019m working on this piece, I see his face, I hear myself whisper just like him, round and round, see it all go round and round.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Everyone was staring at him, entranced.\u00a0 The girl in the blue dress had tears in her eyes and she was running her tongue across her lips in an absent, indiscreet way.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a very skillful con man, is he not?\u201d Liptoffen whispered in my ear.<\/p>\n

After the workshop, Gabriel vanished, as did the girl in the blue dress.\u00a0 All I really wanted to do was find a soft pile of something in Gabriel\u2019s room and sleep, but instead Liptoffen dragged me to an Ethiopian restaurant on Telegraph Avenue, where we drank mead from silvery goblets and ate what appeared to be fiery dog food, so spicy it burned my lips.<\/p>\n

Like Gabriel, Liptoffen\u2019s conversation took the form of a monologue occasionally punctuated by rhetorical questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so few out there whose work thrills me like your friend\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 I watched as he gulped down glass after glass of the sickly sweet wine. I tried to keep up but found my head swimming, words and movements slowing down. \u201cFormless form,\u201d he intoned. \u201cShadow and substance\u2026the lie which shows us the truth\u2026transgressive hypnotic redemptive\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, he stopped, looked at me quizzically, as if only just noticing I was there.\u00a0 \u201cBut I hear you are not truly part of that world,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cCan this be true?\u00a0 That you will be a doctor?\u00a0 Your\u2026your girlfriend said so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cE\u2026Elizabeth?\u201d I stammered. \u201cShe was\u2026here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, yes, charming and so devoted to our Gabriel, so devoted\u2026like you really.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. Like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

I may have drunk too much of the mead; I recall weaving through the fog and drizzle on Telegraph, dodging an angry brigade of motorized wheelchairs.\u00a0 Somehow, I ended up by myself in Cody\u2019s Bookstore, thumbing through a copy of Theater of Fools<\/strong>, looking for references to Gabriel (there were three).<\/p>\n

\u201cThank God, Neddo,\u201d Gabriel said, bounding up the circular stairway.\u00a0 \u201cAfraid I\u2019d misplaced you somewhere.\u00a0 Come on, come on, we need to sketch out the last workshop.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been thinking we could have them simulate fucking\u2026that might be useful\u2026did you ever see that Antonioni film, Zabriskie Point<\/strong>, where all the people are fucking in Death Valley?\u00a0 Awful film but that scene\u2026like something out of Bosch\u2026eerie\u2026The Buddha Train<\/strong> could use a little of that energy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

As we lurched out of Cody\u2019s onto Telegraph, I stopped.\u00a0 \u201cWas Elizabeth\u2026?\u201d I stammered.\u00a0 He stopped.\u00a0 \u201cWas she\u2026here?\u201d<\/p>\n

He leaned toward me, gestured, \u201cJesus, Neddo, look\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And as he said it, I saw the girl in the blue dress, swaying on the sidewalk outside the store.\u00a0 She had something in her hand, something small, gleaming, a pen knife, and suddenly it was raised above Gabriel\u2019s neck, she was plunging it toward his throat.\u00a0 I lifted my hand to stop her but I was drunk, distracted, I stumbled forward, fell against her. The knife flew into the street; she dropped to the sidewalk, weeping.<\/p>\n

Liptoffen materialized in Cody\u2019s doorway.\u00a0 He bent down toward her, reached out his hand. \u201cNow, now,\u201d he clucked, \u201cit will be all right, Elaine, it will be all right\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

She stood up, shakily. She turned toward Gabriel.\u00a0 \u201cLiar!\u201d she hissed, then ran off toward the campus. Gabriel\u2019s face was utterly blank, like he could not quite conjure up the appropriate emotion.\u00a0 I had never seen that look on his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cGabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel,\u201d Liptoffen sighed.\u00a0 \u201cWhen you tell people to be as victims signaling through the flames, sometimes, my boy, sometimes they\u2019re going to \u00a0believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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