Involuntary Bliss

by Devon Code

  “How so?” asked James, but instead of answering, Jean-Marc said that once he’d made up his mind to go to a strip club, there was no stopping him, but that he didn’t like going to them for the usual reason. Jean-Marc suddenly looked severe, his expression drawn. He looked to James much the way he expected he and Mathild would have looked when they’d first recognized him on the street earlier that evening. The server came with their drinks. He waited until the server had left before he asked Jean-Marc why he went to strip clubs. Speaking quietly, almost whispering, Jean-Marc said that he held certain unconventional beliefs.

  “What do these beliefs have to do with strip clubs?” asked James, and Jean-Marc said he believed that breasts have a supernatural power.

  “That’s hardly an unusual belief,” said James, and Jean-Marc clarified that he was referring to a kind of telepathic ability. Not, he explained, telepathy of the conventional kind, involving the minds of two people, but a kind that involved only one mind, that of the transmitter, while breasts served as the receptor. Then he said he believed nipples served as a valve with the capacity of sealing inside of breasts the innermost dynamic impressions of those who looked upon them with desire. The breast is a machine that produces desire, he explained, and the libido is a machine coupled to it through the gaze. Whenever he had a particularly revelatory or painful or joyous experience, said Jean-Marc, he made a point of going to a strip club so that the dynamic impression associated with that event might be transmitted. He understood these dynamic impressions to be the essence of his humanity and did not wish them to be known to him alone. Through their transmission and reception and then their retransmission, he could share this essence with another, he said. A dynamic impression was composed of two distinct and equally important components, each of which was transmitted by one of the eyes of the transmitter and received by one of the breasts of the receiver. Each component of the dynamic impression would remain inert and inactive so long as it remained separate from the other, stored in its respective breast. The two distinct components would then reconstitute the whole dynamic impression only when another libido became coupled to each of the breasts through the desiring mouth. Usually the mouth belonged to a lover, but sometimes it was a nursing infant, he explained. In either case, the reconstituted dynamic impression would take hold of the subject of desire and become manifest in his or her unconscious. To illustrate what he referred to as the “schema of transmission and reception,” Jean-Marc used their respective glasses along with the candle flickering in the jar on the table before them:

  The flickering flame of the candle represented the flame of desire, said Jean-Marc. He said that a poet could transmit these dynamic impressions through his poetry, a painter through her paintings. Because he himself had no such expressive talents, he said, he had to rely on Jezebel’s and the breasts of the women who danced there.

  “What about the breasts of men?” asked James, allowing himself to temporarily suspend his disbelief and disregard the growing discomfort he felt in the presence of his companion. Jean-Marc replied that the breasts of men were no different. So long as they were bare and looked upon with desire, male breasts also functioned as receptors in which dynamic impressions could be stored. But Jean-Marc cautioned that the impressions, unless they were of slight magnitude, would be cramped inside a man’s flat chest and would thus become distorted and malformed, just as they would be inside the chest of a woman with small breasts, which is why strip clubs were an opportune venue, because the breasts of the performers were more likely to be of a certain proportion.

  “Why did you want to go to Jezebel’s tonight?” asked James.

  “Because I ran into you,” replied Jean-Marc, as if the answer was obvious. The two of them sat sipping their drinks as James endeavoured to decide whether his companion actually believed what he’d just said, or whether it was an invention designed to serve some unknown purpose. Jean-Marc’s explanation, however ludicrous, now planted in James’s head, caused James to recall against his better judgment his own eager lips upon Madeleine’s breast in the throes of their passion, James speculating as to what he might have unwittingly imbibed while satiating his lust, a bitter taste now in his mouth, his sangria having suddenly grown insipid.

  “Have you told Mathild and Madeleine about this belief?” asked James.

  “Why would I keep it from them?” Jean-Marc asked in reply. Then he said that he, Mathild and Madeleine had given a great deal of thought to James’s poem. Though all three of them had been disturbed by the poem’s violence, none denied its merit. Mathild and Madeleine might very well be discussing James’s poem at that very instant, said Jean-Marc, or else, they might not be saying anything at all. Again James could not tell whether Jean-Marc was being honest, or whether he was simply trying to elicit some sort of reaction. Jean-Marc looked away, through a window, out into the darkened street. Eventually he said that he’d been the one responsible for getting James the job at the Auberge St. Eglise, that he knew the assistant manager and had recommended James for the job.

  “Why?” asked James.

  “Because that is what friends do,” he said, “and a friend of Madeleine’s is a friend of mine.”

  “Thank you,” said James, because he did not know what else to say. Then Jean-Marc suggested that the two of them leave the bar and rejoin Madeleine and Mathild. James said he didn’t think that was a good idea.

  “We won’t disturb them,” said Jean-Marc, suggesting that they needn’t even speak to them, or make their presence known, that they could simply watch them through the window by the fire escape.

  “I don’t think so,” said James.

  “Maybe you’d like to go back to Jezebel’s,” said Jean-Marc.

  “I’m leaving,” said James, but when he attempted to stand, he found that he was unable to do so, the combination of vodka paralyzer and marijuana and sangria and two servings of Indian cuisine exerting a debilitating effect upon him, so that he had no choice but to listen to Jean-Marc’s further suggestion that he go home to “play tug-of-war with Cyclops,” Jean-Marc pronouncing the expression in English with a heavy French inflection.

  “Perhaps you already have a date with Madame Palm,” continued Jean-Marc, “and her five lovely daughters.” Then the waitress approached and asked if they’d like another round and Jean-Marc nodded his assent before James could protest.

  “Do you know their names?” asked Jean-Marc, and when James, instead of responding, laid his head on the table because he could no longer bear its weight, Jean-Marc reached for James’s right hand and took it in both of his. He counted off each of James’s fingers in sequence, starting with his pinkie, as one-by-one he whispered the names in James’s ear. “Celeste, Odette, Marie-Claire, Gisele,” he said, and then, when he’d reached James’s thumb, “Diane, who is shorter and stouter than her sisters, but still lovely.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked James.

  “Their mother’s name is Madeleine, but we call her Madame Palm out of respect,” said Jean-Marc, as he softly traced a circle upon James’s palm.

  James struggled to withdraw his hand from Jean-Marc’s grasp. Jean-Marc let go and leaned in toward James’s ear and asked in a whisper: “Have the Ladies Palm formed their fist inside of you?” Then he asked James what he was still doing in Montreal, since he’d come with the intention of writing, but had found himself incapable of doing so, with the exception of one curious poem. Without waiting for the answer to either question, Jean-Marc got up and left. When the waitress returned with their drinks and saw James’s state, she withheld them, presented the bill and told James he should have gone home with his friend.

  James sat there for several minutes with his head on the table. He’d been infantilized, he said, and was incapable of action or of speech. He was revolted with Jean-Marc and with himself, with the theory that Jean-Marc had implanted in his brain. Where had Jean-Marc come up with such a t
heory? he wondered. Perhaps he’d heard it from one of the prurient chambermaids at the Auberge St. Eglise. This was one explanation, he thought, for it struck him that Jean-Marc’s theory was a kind of third-rate attempt at emulating the eroticism of the Peruvian novella. It was the Peruvian novella reduced to the level of pornography, stripped bare of the potency of eroticism, deprived of its imaginative power. He could not help but imagine the effect that Jean-Marc’s innermost ‘dynamic impressions’ might have on the fragile psyche of a breastfeeding infant. He wondered if those impressions would stultify or else pervert the purity of the revolutionary impulse that that infant would otherwise possess. In the end he decided that the answer to the question was unknowable, and that deep within him must reside some wellspring of self-loathing in order for him to have subjected himself to Jean-Marc’s company for so long.

  When he eventually managed to regain control of his movements, James took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet, left it on the table and left the bar as quickly as he could. He returned to his flat and vomited copiously into his kitchen sink before he fell asleep, the animosity he felt toward Jean-Marc inspiring uneasy dreams. The next morning, however, while James sat eating breakfast alone in the very same booth in the same diner in which we were currently seated, he’d come to see things differently. His anger had abated as he understood Jean-Marc only to be treating him as he’d treated Madeleine. The way James had left her was no less despicable than the way Jean-Marc had, he realized, when he’d fled the steakhouse that night and left her alone with the bikers. Jean-Marc must have seen himself in his behaviour, James realized, which would explain the extent of his anger, if not the peculiarity of the deception and the bizarreness of the theory that he’d shared. Upon finishing his breakfast, he decided to visit once more the gallery where the poetry reading had been held several months before. He was not sure why he felt compelled to go there, but felt it would make sense for him to return. He found it easily enough and entered, discovering it to be empty save for the proprietor, who did not recognize him without his long hair or his beard. At the rear of the gallery hung a large abstract canvas of brilliant green, the style of which was instantly familiar.

  “One could look at it for days,” said the gallery owner, as she gazed upon the painting with great admiration, “before one begins to see the principle of harmony.” James agreed, for as he considered the canvas before him, he felt for the first time that there might very well be something of a harmonic principle at work in Madeleine’s painting, one that had perhaps been present in her painting all along. He left the gallery and made his way back toward his apartment, stopping to purchase a can of food for Señor Mosca’s midday meal, realizing that what so deeply unsettled him about Madeleine had nothing to do with the ambivalence he felt toward her painting, that in many respects he and Madeleine, despite, or perhaps because of their respective idiosyncrasies, were very well-suited to one another’s company, indeed, as well-suited as one might have any right to expect. The problem between them, James explained to me in the diner over breakfast that morning, was not that he and Madeleine were incompatible in any significant way but that Madeleine was intensely suitable for him and yet he’d still felt that something was not as it should be, which led him to the unsettling conclusion that he was ultimately incompatible with himself.

  “Do you understand what I mean?” he asked, as from across the table he looked at me with an expression of inquisitive calm.

  “No,” I said. And James said it was reprehensible for him to have left Madeleine in the way he had, but that he’d had no choice, that he would not have been able to go through with it had he stopped to think about it for too long. He said that breaking things off with Madeleine had been a kind of dry run, a dress rehearsal for something much greater, much more significant. Rather than elaborate on what this might entail, James suggested that we each order a slice of pie and I immediately agreed, though I normally would have considered such an indulgence ill-advised after the first meal of the day. When the waitress brought us each slices of lemon meringue pie and filled our coffee cups and I took a first bite and then a second, I found some solace in the tartness of the lemon, in the fluffiness of the meringue, in the crumbliness of sub-par pastry, these tastes and textures serving as a soothing balm, muting the mounting unease I felt in the wake of whatever it was James had just chosen to confide, for though his meaning remained obscure, its import, I was certain, was undeniable, so that I felt obliged to continue the discussion, to inquire as to what ramifications James’s self-discovery might have for his well-being, feeling as I did that I would either find the courage to pursue the subject at that moment or else not at all, James having broached it of his own volition, while the two of us were seated together in the diner face to face. And so I laid my fork to rest and brought my cup to my lips, as if, before speaking, to fortify myself with one more sip of coffee, though already far too much caffeine was coursing through my veins, my heart beating faster than it should have been, barely able as I was to grasp the cup firmly and unshakingly with my fingers while James, in comparison, seemed so serene, indeed, unusually composed, as if the events he described, many of which I found disquieting, had not affected him in any way, relaying them to me as he did that morning with every appearance of emotional detachment.

  “Let’s make our way to Mount Royal,” said James, before I could bring myself to speak, and so we settled our tab, stepped outside and walked in silence, crossing the Main and heading another block west toward the large park at the base of the mountain. At the far end of the park, a stone angel towered on a pedestal, the base of which was surrounded by scaffolding half-covered with tattered tarpaulins flapping in the breeze. James made his way toward two picnic tables in a field just beyond the statue so that it took me a moment to find him once again. Behind each of the tables stood a man in a bright nylon windbreaker and a billowing hat of colourful woven hemp. Every so often someone would approach one man or the other, and a transaction would ensue, and though the gestures were discreet, the nature of the transactions was obvious. In some instances those who approached would advance to the mountain behind the men, and in others they would turn back in the direction from which they came, so that it seemed as if the men were not simply dealing marijuana, but determining who was worthy to advance to the mountain and who had to turn back. The gate was invisible, it occurred to me, and these men were its keepers. I realized then that James was not simply impartially observing the scene as I was, but was in fact waiting his turn.

  “How do you decide which one to go to?” I asked.

  “They decide,” he replied, as one of the customers left and the man behind the nearest of the two tables made eye contact with James, signalling for him to approach. Once the transaction was complete, James slipped his purchase into the front pocket of his denim trousers and gestured for me to follow. Together we then strolled on the mountain, the shade of the forest canopy a reprieve from the heat of the sun. There were narrow footpaths worn in the side of the incline, but at first we took the more leisurely and well-travelled route along a wide road, so that our elevation increased only gradually. It wasn’t until James turned off the main road and onto a narrow, more secluded path, that he began to speak. He described an evening shortly after his chance encounter with Mathild and Jean-Marc.

  Unwilling to return to the loneliness of his apartment after work, he’d gone to the park, sat at a picnic table and spent some time observing three men, two old and one young, as they played a game of bocce. The game was at once amicable and intensely serious, and it struck him that the men were able to focus with great concentration while remaining relaxed enough to enjoy one another’s company. One of the old men eventually noticed him watching and approached, shuffling forward with an awkward, painful gait that James had not noticed when the man was playing. The man raised his hand to his forehead in a gesture of politesse, as if tipping the brim of an invisible hat. He asked, in English accented with a
language James could not discern, whether he cared to join them. When James respectfully declined, the man explained that the game was easy to learn, that it would be quite possible for James to surpass the ability of the man’s young friend, who was incapable of gauging the distance of a ball on the turf or the strength of his own throw. James said that he’d been watching, and though the young man was not as deft as his companions, he still played with some degree of skill. He said that he was grateful for the offer but that he preferred to watch, which caused me to remark to James that the failure to take the man up on his offer was unlike him. I had not expected the story to go this way, for the behaviour he described was more characteristic of myself than him. James said that he agreed, that the same thing had occurred to him. He said that though there was no doubt he was more likely than I to take strangers up on their offers, there were in fact occasions when he did not feel like doing so, and that afternoon, for whatever reason, had been one of those occasions. The man who’d invited him to play had smiled and shuffled back to where the balls lay on the patchy green, for his turn had come and his companions were waiting.

  James had stayed and watched, and when the light began to fail, the men packed their bocce balls in a case that the young man carried under his arm as the three of them made their way to the Main, no doubt headed to a bar where they would drink together. It was then, James explained, that he realized how much he missed Warren and me. Now that Warren was gone, he said, he wished that at least the two of us might live in the same city once again, so that we might strengthen the bond he felt had only just begun to grow between us when he’d left eight months before. What was it precisely, I felt compelled to ask him at that instant—phrasing the question delicately, perhaps overly so, so that it would not seem like a challenge or an affront—that we had in common? When he did not respond immediately, I worried that I’d touched on something rather vulnerable and raw. But then James said that we were friends because of shared enthusiasms, because of our mutual interest in music and in verse, in literature in general and the Peruvian novella in particular, and that we also had complementary ways of seeing the world and understanding ourselves in it, just as he’d had with Warren. I found myself willing to accept James’s explanation, even as I realized that this answer was inadequate, that any number of individuals shared our interests, were able to discuss them, to forge connections, and that the true reason we were walking together that day on the mountain had nothing to do with the reasonable or obvious explanation James had given, nor did it have to do with notions of predetermination or psychological explanations of compatibility, that the practical differences between us and the challenges these posed were much more significant than any shared enthusiasms or experiences or memories, that most of what I knew about James, in fact, came not from things we’d done together, but rather memories he’d shared with me after the fact, things he’d done with Warren or alone, that much of the time we spent together was spent in conversation, largely one-sided, me commenting on the stories James told and their significance, James sometimes disagreeing or qualifying what I had to say, but more often agreeing and praising what he understood as my ability to discern patterns or hidden meanings in his lived experience, or his recollections, to which I replied that most often I said next to nothing, that listening was enough, that all that was necessary was for me to say something, anything, every once in a while, to indicate that I was listening, that I was attentive, and that the knowledge I was listening was enough for him to help make sense of his own memories, to bring to the surface whatever significance or import they had possessed all along, even if this significance was in the mystery or the strangeness of that memory or that half-formed idea. This was the nature of our friendship, but the reason for the bond was not among the reasons James had given, whatever this reason that had caused him to miss me on that evening when he’d gone to the park and dusk had come and the bocce men had finished their game and left, causing him to turn from the fields of the park to the shadows of the mountain as he first walked upon that road that we were now walking upon together, before he led me from the path and into the depths of the forest to where he’d witnessed the tryst some months before, the two of us sitting there on the side of the mountain while James smoked his marijuana cigarette before we ascended to the plateau with its vista, where James performed the song about the one-eyed infant as I endeavoured to discern what it meant, if indeed it meant anything at all, the two of us eventually making our way down the mountain and then through the park once more, before we walked again upon the city streets in daylight that had begun to fade.