monster road continues

at the gate.
is he asleep? did he forget i was coming?
this is my first day working with bruce.
he doesn't answer the phone at first and i call brian to help me.
"real simple," brian says, although it is seldom simple with a guy like brian. i guess bruce was taking a piss off the back porch, he tells me. he's coming out now and brian keeps talking.
something about bruce makes me think of nick cave. i think its how his long white hair sticks up at front. a widows peak?
bruce walks slowly to the gate. opens it. lets me in.
i drive my car slowly up his drive and he leads the way on foot. i watch has he bends over a wood pile beside his house and rearrange a blue tarm cover. he pushes a little wheelbarrow behind the house. hes been collecting wood, he tells me.
"how is the drawing coming along?" i ask him. someone from west virginia gave bruce an upfront commission to draw something, anything at all. fifty bucks. six months later, he worked on it a little.
martin olsen is also waiting for something. some guy at disney asked for bruce to send him something. some guy at dark horse comics, too. six months later, bruce has some sketches and loose outlines.
bruce recently saw dark knight. wally pfister personally recommended it to him when they met at the denver film festival.
today, we are walking around his kitchen and discussing the origins of these projects. he has an old wood country stove and an electric camping kit.
he heats up some water in an old tea kettle and offers me a cup of osmething hot.
brian told me yesterday, i was brave to accept it. the camera crew was a bit weary as if there is something in the tea. psychoactive chemicals and they'll make you crazy!
i'm glad brian isn't with us today. he can be a bit dramatic and over analyze things.
we worked on a press release together. i'm not sure if this is what he should be doing right now but i'm not sure how to orchestrate a better plan.
a photographer showed up with pictures. i told her that brian brought me and she was confused. she doesn't know him, bruce told me.
"who is brian?"
"he is a nutcase," he tells her. "he is useful for some things but he argues all the time and he alienates people."
bruce told her about his recent discovery of caffeine and his adverse reactions to it. he had this conversation with me, too.
we took a tour of the garage. bruce walked around and showed us things. some clay figurines are from the zappa years and i recognise them from videos i had seen on-line.
funny how the other day, brian said bruce was allergic to the oils in the clay. he said bruce was unable to enter the garrage because he was so adverse to the fumes. and here, bruce is walking through his history with us.
i am begining to rethink everything brian had told me.