Noir Désir - Toujours être ailleurs

Oh chaque nuit se réduire en cendres
Se laisser répandre
Dans les lavabos blancs

La solution est sans doute amère
Si l'on considère
Qu'on n'sait pas où ça mène

Quelqu'un ici pourrait-il me dire
Quelles sont les raisons qui me poussent ?

Et les yeux vers l'ouest
Toujours être ailleurs
Et les mains vers l'est
J'veux toujours être ailleurs !

J'ai la nausée quand je reste assis
Si je suis couché je n'joint pas les "debouts"

Et je souris pour le photographe
Qui va nous figer
Notez mon épitaphe
Notez !

Je me sens si bien hier matin
Que je voudrai être à demain

Oh j'ai jamais pu oublier
L'odeur des endroits où j'irai
C'est seulement une question de moeurs

J'veux toujours être ailleurs
J'veux toujours être ailleurs
Toujours être ailleurs

The copilot rapped on the door with his knuckles. "Mr. Ackerman! Are you all right?"

He hesitated, then called again, much louder this time. "Mr. Ackerman! This is your captain speaking. Are you sick?"

"What?" said a voice from inside.

The stewardess leaned close to the door. "This is a medical emergency, Mr. Ackerman - we can get you out of there in thirty seconds if we have to." She smiled triumphantly at Captain Goodwrench as the voice inside came alive again.

"I'm fine," it said. "I'll be out in a minute."

The copilot stood back and watched the door. There were more sounds of movement inside - but nothing else, except the sound of running water.

By this time the entire first class cabin was alerted to the crisis. "Get that freak out of there!" an old man shouted. "He might have a bomb!"

"Oh my God!" a woman screamed. "He's in there with something!"

The copilot flinched, then turned to face the passengers. He pointed his tool at the old man, who was now becoming hysterical. "You!" he snapped. "Shut up! I'll handle this."

Suddenly the door opened and Mr. Ackerman stepped out. He moved quickly into the aisle and smiled at the stewardess. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said. "It's all yours now." He was backing down the aisle, his bush jacket draped casually over his arm, but not covering it.

From where I was sitting I could see that the arm he was trying to hide from the stewardess was bright blue, all the way up to the shoulder. The sight of it made me coil nervously into my seat. I had liked Mr. Ackerman, at first. He had the look of a man who might share my own tastes . . . but now he was looking like trouble, and I was ready to kick him in the balls like a mule for any reason at all. My original impression of the man had gone all to pieces by that time. This geek who had locked himself in the bathroom for so long that one of his arms had turned blue was not the same gracious, linen-draped Pacific yachtsman who had boarded the plane in San Francisco.

Most of the other passengers seemed happy enough just to see the problem come out of the bathroom peacefully: no sign of a weapon, no dynamite taped to his chest, no screaming of incomprehensible terrorist slogans or threatening to slit people's throats. . . . The old man was still sobbing quietly, not looking at Ackerman as he continued to back down the aisle toward his own seat, but nobody else seemed worried.

The copilot, however, was staring at Ackerman with an expression of pure horror on his face. He had seen the blue arm - and so had the stewardess, who was saying nothing at all. Ackerman was still trying to keep his arm hidden under the bush jacket. None of the other passengers had noticed it - or, if they had, they didn't know what it meant.

But I did, and so did the bug-eyed stewardess. The copilot gave Ackerman one last withering glance, then shuddered with obvious disgust as he closed up his commando tool and moved away. On his way to the flight deck, he paused right above me in the aisle and whispered to Ackerman: "You filthy bastard, don't ever let me catch you on one of my flights again."

I saw Ackerman nod politely, then he slid into his seat just across the aisle from me. I quickly stood up and moved toward the bathroom with my shaving kit in my hand - and when I'd locked myself safely inside I carefully closed the toilet seat before I did anything else.

There is only one way to get your arm dyed blue on a 747 flying at 38,000 feet over the Pacific. But the truth is so rare and unlikely that not even the most frequent air travelers have ever had to confront it - and it is usually not a thing that the few who understand want to talk about.

The powerful disinfectant that most airlines use in their toilet-flushing facilities is a chemical compound known as Dejerm, which is colored a very vivid blue. The only other time I ever saw a man come out of an airplane bathroom with a blue arm was on a long flight from London to Zaire, enroute to the Ali-Foreman fight. A British news correspondent from Reuters had gone into the bathroom and somehow managed to drop his only key to the Reuters telex machine in Kinshasa down the aluminum bowl. He emerged about 30 minutes later, and he had a whole row to himself the rest of the way to Zaire.

Hunter S. Thompson
The Curse of Lono