When I was with the whores in Cairo, if I needed to be admonished, Satan entered the conversation, if I ran too fast, I’d risk tumbling into Satan’s domain, Iblis would enter the room if I left its door open, when I was with the nuns in Beirut, if I needed to be admonished, it was forever my mother, if I spoke out of turn, I would grow up to be impetuous like her, if I was tardy, unreliable like my mother, if I did not confess my sins. I could grow up to be evil like Satan or my mother, why not both, I ask you.
I ate alone for years, always alone, boys came and went, new boys, graduating boys, no one sat next to me during breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Joseph and his brothers graduated, they passed the Lebanese baccalaureate, not the French, don’t ask me how because their combined intelligence could not outwit an ass, he returned to the orphanage a few years after, while the Lebanese civil war was in full glorious swing about us, to proudly exhibit his plumes, his militia outfit and phallic weapons, Joseph even allowed the young boys to play with his loaded revolver and its six-chambered cylinder, much to the consternation of the nuns, who, like me, watched the armed criminal from the sidelines, the man they used to cane on a biweekly basis, he in full gloat, his eyes excited and hashish-dull, he asked loudly how my mother was, and not thinking I answered rashly, I wish I knew.
The Ass
Pinto died peacefully during a violent night of storms, a garnet-colored sack above his hospital bed. As per his request, the doctors had turned the machines off, his mind was morphined, his pain alleviated. Strangely carved features adorned the thinnest face he had ever had, badged with the purplish lesions of martyrdom. Pinto’s emotional-support volunteer wept alone in one corner, younger than all of us, he was new to all this dying stuff, Pinto used to tease him by suggesting that his dying was deflowering the virgin. Such a boy he was, stooped upon himself, his hands covering his face, crying silently, it was true, he was no longer inexperienced, my memory of him is foggy, tender hands, freckles, brown eyes, and long lashes, I can’t recall his name.
I rubbed lotion onto Pinto’s dry feet, the streetlamp lit the rain from below as in a Romero horror movie, I watched through the picture window until forked lightning distorted the effect, a flood, a deluge to commemorate the passing. I felt a little guilty because I had sent Jim home, offered him the choice of not being there and he grabbed it. He had walked fifteen blocks to the hospital, arrived soggy and haggard, his mind a bit drifty, not morphined like Pinto’s, doped up on Jah’s blessing. Go home, I told him, go home, please, I’m here, Greg’s here, you don’t have to be, he would understand, and by he I meant either dying Pinto or his lover who had died not ten days earlier.
As soon as Pinto’s heart halted, his face turned green and uninhabited, not even a ghost of him remained, just his remains, I kissed the top of his head, smelled a whiff of sour sweat, tasted a hint of peat moss and earth, the Dormition of Pinto. Water collected in clear sumps on the lower lids of Greg’s eyes, his left dropped a tear before his right.
After Pinto had his first bout with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, the death sentence, he began to joke about wanting to be buried ass up, offering the world the choice part of his anatomy, he wanted an open-casket funeral so the men who had spent weeks and days and hours and hours worshipping his ass could pay it final tribute. He was joking, of course, but I believe he also meant it. In some ways, the fact that he had what most men consider an impeccable asset was what defined him, his pride, so of course that was one of the first things the disease deprived him of. After that first bout of PCP he descended a spiral of weight loss, and his butt shrank, melted, the seats of the designer jeans that used to hug and highlight began to flap when he walked, not long after he lost so much fat that his derriere floated in the denim as if it were in a bathtub. He loathed inchoate hip-hop and its sagging pants, it made him furious.
He made me promise not to bury him in Colma, Anywhere but Colma, he said, I’m a San Francisco boy, I can’t end up in the suburbs, God, the indignity. We cremated him. Poor Pinto.
Cobra
On the walk back home
the moon hidden but full
an electric bus stalled
the long hook on its roof
discharged bright sparks
fiery into the night air
detached from the power line
it hissed like a vicious cobra
and fell flat death rattle
— — —
Your poison coursed
through my blood
my nervous system
wouldn’t trade it for anything
you flung my doors open
Every day
every moment
I miss you terribly
Poetry
I couldn’t write, I couldn’t write, stop all the clocks, poetry has gone and left me and the days are all alike.
I was left alive so I could be lonely, bereft of any company but that of ghosts and automatons in this vapid city where I walked until the early dark deepened and a light sheen of mist formed on the leaves of trees, a little crepuscular promenade, my mind filled, to the exclusion of all else, with Satan’s voice saying, Pick up the pieces, numbnuts, pick up the pieces, you need a spring cleaning if not a colon scouring, you need an upheaval, a revolution.
The first revolution was Egyptian, of course, the Seth Rebellion of 2740 BC. That’s stupid, Satan said, the first rebellion was mine, I, the angel of light, I, all pulchritude and glory and blazing fire, I rejected blindness, I broke the chains of conformism, and you’re still paying for that one, all else fails and pales in comparison. I shrug you off, Satan. Shrug me off as much as you want, Satan said, but until you remember that the first sin is oblivion, your poetry will remain shit.
I decided to give up, poetry, that is, I should have a long time ago, I gave up on life, why not poetry, I ask you.
A man who does not engage life should not engage poetry, Satan said, accept Lucifer as your muse, when Adam, still unstained by guile, first bit into his luscious apple of gold and wax red and licked its juice dribbling down his chin, poetry came to life, through a dilating crack he and his buxom consort were hurled into this sunlit world of contrast, when they were tossed out of banal Paradise like yesterday’s used condoms, the serpent of old offered life and verse and art.
I hear you not, Satan, I hear you not.
I miss Eve, Satan said, she’s my homegirl.
I pelt you with stones, Lucifer, father of lies.
Listen to me, Satan said, his eyes infused with flames, get thee out of Eden, poetry can never be unstained.
Satan’s Interviews
Denis
The fur on Behemoth’s back bristled as soon as he saw Denis holding his mitered head on his lap. Behemoth hissed, unleashed a rending meow, and jumped right back into the closet.
“Funny cat,” Denis said.
“Bothered by the head,” Satan said.
Had Satan doubted for a moment that the cephalophore was the most vain of the fourteen, the cloak would have ensured that he would never do so again: it was of the most luscious silk, a radiant Yves Klein blue with a needlepoint illustration of the city of Paris in gold thread. His crosier was emblazoned with golden luster and more inlaid gems than a magpie’s nest.
“Are you?” Denis raised a recently waxed eyebrow.
“Of course,” Satan said. “Standard rule: if cats dislike something, I usually do as well. I feel uncomfortable talking to you and you know that. Instead of looking at where your head is supposed to be, I’m staring at your crotch. I can’t concentrate on much else than the autoerotic possibilities. I know that’s the point, but can you at least hold your head in the crook of your arm?”
“If I hold my head higher while I’m seated, my two halos clash.”
“Put it on, then.”
“I usually wear my head only when I need to think,” Denis said.
Satan enunciated his command slowly. “Put. It. On.”
“Oh, all right.” Denis returned his
head to his shoulders; it fell into place with the subtlest of clicks.
“Why did you abandon him?” asked Satan.
“I did not,” Denis said. “He abandoned me, he abandoned us. I was with him from the start, not because of him, but because of his mother. She needed me and I was there. Now, she—she was devoted to me and my arts. But the boy was different, slow in some ways. Surrounded by desire, he knew not how to partake. He was a virgin for I don’t know how long. He was Catherine’s boy long before he became mine. And then he unleashed his desires and I thought there would be no stopping him, but he stopped. He stopped, not me. Can I have some tea, please?”
“No.”
Every time Satan met the dandified bishop, he felt a wrench of urges: he wanted to slap Denis, to knock the idiotic miter off his head—he wanted to behead him.
“Go back to the beginning,” Satan said. “When did you first meet Jacob?”
“Catherine came first. The rest appeared to him when he began to recognize us, but we were there long before. He simply never saw us. I remember things Jacob doesn’t.”
“Tell me,” Satan said. “This is what we’re here for. What do you think he has forgotten?”
“Well, for me, I think the important erasures are the whorehouse years. He has skipped over much, his remembrances are a surreal game of hopscotch. He remembers the Cairo house in detail, but he erased most of the city. It’s not just what he remembers, it’s how he does. He remembers in his head. If I were to remind him about Cairo—if, mind you—I would ask him how the light felt falling on his face during winter afternoons. How gooey was the riparian mud he stuck his hand in the first time he walked along the Nile south of the city? A haptic memory perhaps?”
“An expedition into the depth of his tactile memories,” Satan said. “The brush of the coarse bricks on his calves as he dangled his legs over the midget wall across the street from the house.”
“Yes, yes. Does he recall feeling nervous during a visit with Badeea to Khan el-Khalili when he was five? He held her hand as she shopped, how his hand felt in hers, how small he felt next to her, the scent of fresh eggplant and green squash, the pots cooking Egyptian mallow, the smell of fresh rabbit turd under the cages. Does he remember? And the crowd thickened as if a ton of roux had been dropped into the human soup, everyone so much larger than him. Fear, anxiety, he was terrified of being trampled. Badeea lifted him up with her left arm, that woman had the strength of ten men. Does he remember touching her cheek, laying his head on her shoulder like a drooping tulip on the rim of its vase, looking back at the gathering crowd, safely tucked atop her bosom, the feel of her forearm on his behind? You see, he thinks he doesn’t remember, but of course he does. It’s just that our memories are rarely where we think they are.”
“So you think you can help him remember Cairo?”
“Yes, I do,” Denis said. “There was a small mosque but two streets away from the house. The boy used to love hearing the muezzin’s melodious call, and that teenager had a glorious voice by any standard, and he was blind as he was supposed to be. The child Jacob was so enamored by the sound that he wondered aloud why the household didn’t attend the mosque. Badeea took him that one time. Does he remember the ablutions, the warm water on his skin, it was summer, the rug beneath his bare feet in the women’s section of the mosque? He might recall why he never went back, how unwelcome he was made to feel because of Badeea, how the other women shunned her, did not look her way. Even as little more than a toddler, he knew what that was; he was as sensitive to ostracism as any budding homosexual.”
“He thinks he has never been inside a mosque,” Satan said, “but too many times inside a church.”
“Well, he’s wrong, isn’t he?” said Denis. “Not that he received better treatment in the church.”
Denis tilted his head back and sniffed the air twice. A scowl began at his brow below the miter, eyebrows scrunched, nostrils dilated, lips turned downward, chin rising up, a rictus. The red scar of his beheading made a theatrical appearance from behind the robe’s neckline.
“Who’s been smoking in here?” he asked.
“You know who,” Satan replied.
“That son of a night. He knows I’m allergic to tobacco.” From one of his robe’s pockets, Denis brought out a hand-sized gold thurible, from another, an antique gold lighter with an engraved crest of the city of Paris. Without moving from his seat, he shook the smoky apparatus all around him. “The standards,” he said. “Frankincense and myrrh.”
In the closet, Behemoth hissed loudly.
“Are we done?” Satan asked.
“Yes, sorry.” Denis placed the censer on the hardwood floor between his feet. “As I was saying, I remember more than Jacob does.” He did not return the lighter to his pocket, flicked it on distractedly a couple of times.
“I need to clarify something,” Satan said. “Now, do you truly believe that he remembered the Cairo house in detail, but not the city?”
“Yes,” Denis said. “Well, no, not exactly. He remembers the specifics of the house in detail, but not what happened in it. He writes that the men who visited the brothel ignored him, but you know that’s not accurate, not always. When he was old enough he had to help with a number of chores. His first incarnation was as a brazier boy.” He lifted the thurible off the floor and swung it gently a few times. “When the room was full, the boy had to rush around replenishing charcoal in every dying hookah. If he was slow, a man noticed him. His second was foot massager, of course. For some men, especially the Russians, this was part of a sensuous evening. A customer would lounge on the couch, call the boy, who had to run over, get on his knees before the man, take the shoes and socks off, and work the feet.”
“On his knees before the man,” Satan said.
Denis flipped the top of the lighter and struck it seven times in a row. “Why does he choose not to remember these details?”
“He will now,” Satan said.
“What about the henna incident? How could he forget that? He wrote that the prepubescent Joseph’s hairless crotch was the first he’d seen.”
“Tell me.”
“He learned to henna his mother’s hands and feet at an early age. She used to decorate herself, whenever she knew a client wanted something different or less familiar. Then the boy turned out to have a talent for it. Once every ten days or so, his mother let her son draw on her skin. He did so for about six months before a soused East German noticed the designs from across the room. He demanded to know what was on her hands and feet even though the poor woman was entertaining another man. She explained, pointing to her son as the designer. The loud East German demanded his own henna design, a strange request obviously, but the brothel was known for being accommodating. The boy rushed over with the gourd and reed, and knelt before the seated man, golden blond he was, big and sturdy. He looked at the boy, who was gazing up at him, waiting for instructions. The East German snickered, stood up before the kneeling boy, undid his pants while the whole room, European men and subaltern women, watched. Out jumped his fully erect blutwurst, almost slapped the poor boy’s face. The boy didn’t move, but even had he wanted to, he wasn’t quick enough because Badeea jumped up from her divan, lifted the boy by his shirt collar, and pulled him behind her. She berated the man, but he grew belligerent, demanding that his penis be drawn upon or the house would suffer unspecified consequences. The men were amused, the women horrified, no one budged. Badeea was about to call on the lazy oaf who was supposed to be the bouncer when the intervention occurred.”
“Halimeh,” Satan said.
“You remember her too,” Denis said, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “The girl with the pigtails—love her now, worshipped her then. She was thirteen, still a virgin but not for very long. While Badeea was telling off the ugly rascal, who refused to pack his insistent penis, Halimeh, seemingly out of nowhere, knelt before him, shocking everyone, including the uncouth European himself. While all gasped, she dipped the reed i
n the gourd, held the penis in her left hand, and began to draw with her right. No one but the girl moved, the only sounds were the tap of the reed on the gourd and the East German’s heavy breathing. He almost erupted at least twice. For the entire time the girl went about her chore, everyone including our boy remained still, observing the unfurling image, the tiny dark girl on her knees before the giant with overgrown blond pubic hair. The penile design was nothing exceptional of course, and it was ruined because he couldn’t maintain his erection long enough for the henna to take root, so ogees, swoops, and arabesques were nothing but blotches at deflation. But what Halimeh did was exceptional. She became the most desired Arab whore ever. The East German pleaded to take her back to one of the rooms, but even he knew that he could not afford her virginity. They brought in a West German for that. He paid a considerable fortune for her Arab hymen.”
“And the poet recalls only her pigtails,” Satan said.
At the Clinic
Gluteal Poems
Ferrigno the Iraqi, who was to lead me back to the waiting room, failed to keep a straight face, quickly glanced around the examining room, grinned, No poetry, he said, not questioning, just matter-of-fact, he knew I wouldn’t, and Satan said, The staff probably had a pool on whether you’d break, I wonder whether this inflatable Iraqi bet for or against, let’s graffiti the walls, no, no, ask him if you can write on his badass booty, I wonder what he’d say to that, I bet he’d let you, ass for art’s sake, ask him, you can write Ass You Like It.
I told Satan, Do not go gentle into that good butt.
Ha, screeched Satan, he’s the emperor of ass cream, now compose an ode to a gluteus turn. I told Satan,
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
The Angel of History Page 17